Through Transfiguration
by IzzyBells
Summary: Marina Stewart-Lautrec receives her Hogwarts letter, buys a cat, and is sorted into a different house than her childhood best friend. Then she finds out how hard Transfiguration is. And then, in second year, she befriends four Gryffindor boys. (includes background Jily, EVENTUAL SiriusxOC, and growing up. rated T for unsupervised teenaged characters)
1. Chapter 1

**AN: Hey there kiddos! Soooooo...for those of you who are actually following me as an author, I SWEAR I plan to update SBIT at some point. This is my last week of school and then I will have A Lot More Free Time for writing. In the mean time...have this thing I wrote in a fit of inspiration. I have plans for it to be eventual SiriusxOC, but it'll certainly be slow-going, I think. In the first few chapters I think I'll focus on building my character first and how she fits into the wizarding world and all that before I even think about starting up a romance plot. And anyway, they're 11. The most that could happen at first is, like, innocent crushes, especially in 1971. So that's where I am in life right now. I do plan to put out more of this story somewhat regularlyish along with somewhat regularish updates for SBIT. Without further ado, enjoy! And please leave reviews if you feel like it, I love hearing reader thoughts, especially on what you think might happen later (I could use those ideas, sometimes...help me!)**

When your papa is a registered animagus and likes to play with you in his animal form (what better friend to learn to swim with than a dolphin), of course you grow up dying to know how to become an animal just like him. When your mum uses magic, something so amazing and miraculous, around the house like it's nothing, of course you want to learn absolutely everything she learned. When your papa and mum both tell you bedtime stories about their formative years learning magic, of course you grow up itching to go off to boarding school just like them.

The brown school owl dropped off Marina's acceptance letter on the morning of the first of July, 1970, just as her father was beginning to clean up breakfast. When her mother held up a letter "addressed to Ms. Marina Stewart-Lautrec," she jumped out of her seat and squealed in delight, ripping open the cream envelope and eagerly unfolding the first parchment sheet inside. Her eyes giddily took in the Hogwarts seal, the green script, as she bounced up and down on her toes:

 _Dear Ms. Stewart-Lautrec,_

 _We are pleased to inform you that you have a place at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Please find enclosed a list of all necessary books and equipment._

 _Term begins on 1 September. We await your owl by no later than 31 July._

 _Yours sincerely,_

 _Minerva McGonagall_

 _Deputy Headmistress_

"Mum! Papa! I'm going to Hogwarts!" she squeaked, exhilarated.

"I'm so proud of you, darling!" her mother exclaimed, clasping her hands at her chest. "I know you'll absolutely love Hogwarts. That castle became my second home; I'm sure it'll be yours soon enough as well!"

"Oh, mon cœur! How exciting!" her father exclaimed, drying his hands on the kitchen towel and grinning brightly. Having gone to Beauxbatons, he had no praising words about Hogwarts specifically. This didn't mean he had no praising words for wizarding school at all. "You will have so much fun learning all there is to learn about magic, I know it."

Marina read through the second sheet of parchment folded with the first:

 _UNIFORM_

 _First-year students will require:_

 _1\. Three sets of plain work robes (black)_

 _2\. One plain pointed hat (black) for day wear_

 _3\. One pair of protective gloves (dragon hide or similar)_

 _4\. One winter cloak (black, with silver fastenings)_

 _Please note that all pupil's clothes should carry name tags._

 _COURSE BOOKS_

 _All students should have a copy of each of the following:_

The Standard Book of Spells (Grade 1)

 _by Miranda Goshawk_

A History of Magic

 _by Bathilda Bagshot_

Magical Theory

 _by Adalbert Waffling_

A Beginner's Guide to Transfiguration

 _by Emeric Switch_

One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi

 _by Phydilla Spore_

Magical Dafts and Potions

 _by Arsenius Jigger_

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them

 _by Newt Scamander_

The Dark Forces: A Guide to Self-Protection

 _by Quentin Trimble_

 _OTHER EQUIPMENT_

 _1 wand_

 _1 cauldron (pewter, standard size 2)_

 _1 set glass or crystal phials_

 _1 telescope_

 _1 set brass scales_

 _Students may also bring, if they desire, an owl OR a cat OR a toad._

 _PARENTS ARE REMINDED THAT FIRST YEARS ARE NOT ALLOWED THEIR OWN BROOMSTICK_

 _Yours sincerely,_

 _Lucinda Thomsonicle-Pocus_

 _Chief Attendant of Witchcraft Provisions_

It was all so exciting, looking over the books she'd read for the classes she would finally get to take, the things she'd finally get to use. This was her parents' legacy: her father's stories, her mother's skills. Now Marina would get to join them in the wonderful gift of magic! She'd performed accidental magic, of course, but she was so excited to be able to use her talents properly, just like her parents.

Her father sent an owl back to the school confirming her attendance that day, after breakfast, and he promised to take her to Diagon Alley to school shop in August. Marina groaned.

"Papa, August is forever away!"

Her papa chuckled, blue eyes bright and twinkling. "You have been to Diagon Alley before, mon amour. It will be just the same as all the other times, yes?"

Marina huffed and crossed her arms. "Yes, Papa, but it'll be extra special when I go shopping for school." She grinned and uncrossed her arms to hug her father, still overflowing with excitement. "School shopping, Papa! For Hogwarts!"

"Perhaps you can persuade your mother to take you on a Diagon Alley visit tomorrow. I say a young witch should learn to take care of her animal companion before she's sent off to boarding school with it, no?"

The full meaning of the words took a few seconds to set in before Marina gasped and looked up at her father with wide eyes. "You mean it? I get a pet?!" She began to bounce on her toes again.

"Of course you do. Every witch needs a familiar." Her father looked with raised eyebrows to her mother, who nodded solemnly in agreement.

Marina clasped her hands in front of her chest, a little habit she'd picked up from her mother. "Thank you, thank you, thank you!" Suddenly, her lips quirked into a little frown, and she referred back to the letter she'd dropped on the table earlier that morning in her excitement. "'An owl, or a cat, or a toad,'" she read. "I wouldn't much like a toad," Marina stated slowly, looking back up at her parents with serious eyes, much to the adults' amusement. "Should I get an owl or a cat?"

"An owl would certainly be the more functional of the two," her mother offered.

Her father hummed. "You have the rest of today to think about it, amour. If all else fails," he shrugged, smiled, "pick whichever pet you fall in love with tomorrow."

The girl nodded, looking a little less troubled.

"Mina, darling, why don't you run along and see if Quincy got his letter this morning?" her mother suggested. "Perhaps you can discuss the problem of pets together."

The adults smiled as Marina ran to put on shoes and bounced out the backdoor to find her friend (who assuredly did get his letter this morning). Once she'd gone, her mother's gentle smile fell, and she sighed, frowning. She worried for Marina for a whole host of reasons, not the least of which had to do with her only daughter going off to boarding school by herself.

"I see you thinking, Bobbie. Anxious about our little girl growing up?"

Bobbie Stewart sighed again, tapping a rhythm out with her manicured nails on the tabletop. "Of course I am, but…it's more than that, you know. Theo, what if the other—"

"Do not worry about it." Theo Lautrec gave his girlfriend a reassuring smile. "Mina can take anything that castle can throw at her."

—

True to her parents' word, Bobbie took Marina for an outing in Diagon Alley the very next day. Per Marina's request, they traveled through Muggle London to the Leaky Cauldron. The eleven year old simply shrugged and said it was more fun than flooing there in response to her mother's raised eyebrow. They drove into the city, Marina watching the cars and the buildings pass outside the window, idly wondering what everyone else was doing, and daydreaming about her impending first year at Hogwarts. Would she make friends? She certainly hoped so. What House might she be sorted into? Well, her mum had been a Slytherin, but her mum had always called her papa a Hufflepuff. What would that mean for her? Would she end up like one or the other, or would her parents' personalities mix up to make Marina someone completely different? She wanted to be in Hufflepuff, like her papa might've been. Slytherin sounded too intense and competitive. Marina was distracted by an old man driving his car with a sandwich in his mouth.

Soon enough, they'd arrived at the old, slightly dilapidated pub. Marina waved and grinned brightly at the jolly wizard behind the bar in the Leaky Cauldron as she followed her mum into the back garden. Bouncing on her toes, she waited for her mother to tap the bricks and reveal the archway. The bustling sounds and smells of the wizarding marketplace floated through to the witches, and Bobbie smiled at her daughter's excitement. As all mothers are wont to do, she smoothed Marina's hair and straightened her clothes before taking her by the hand and stepping with the giddy girl through the brick entryway.

Somehow, even having grown up with two magical parents, Marina never really got over going to Diagon Alley, or anywhere else so specifically, blatantly magical. She thought it must have to do with how like Muggles her family lived. Her Muggleborn papa liked having telephones and televisions and microwaves and all sorts of Muggle inventions he grew up with, and her mum, who came from an almost entirely pureblood family, liked the quirky lifestyle Muggles lived, even if electricity and magic didn't always get along. She told Marina once that living in Muggle London with Muggle things made her feel rebellious. So obviously wizarding places were still exciting for Marina.

In addition to picking out a furry or feathery friend to take to Hogwarts, Marina's mother had a few other errands to run in the Alley. The eleven-year-old's excitement grew to unbearable levels as they drifted from Mr. Mulpepper's, to Flourish and Blott's, to Wisacre's, to Madame Malkin's…. It seemed to Marina that her mother was drawing out the wait as long as she could, just because she could. It was premeditated torture. Bobbie watched her daughter get gradually fidgetier and fidgetier as she looped around the Alley, lingering in shops, deliberating over little purchases. Finally, when Marina seemed about to explode, she had mercy and halted their expedition on the terrace of Florean Fortescue's, just across from Eeylop's. Marina watched the owls blinking and ruffling their feathers in their cages.

"Have you made your mind up, my dear?" Bobbie asked lightly.

With a small sigh, Marina looked up at her mother. "I really want a cat. But wouldn't an owl be a better idea?" She turned back to the trained birds. "I can always use an owl, but a cat doesn't have much of a purpose," she explained, wrinkling her nose.

Her mother hummed. "I'm inclined to agree with you. Only, I don't want you to think of the cat you could have had every time you look at your owl. How about we go look at the owls, and if you don't meet the perfect owl that you would be alright with owning instead of a cat, then we can look at the cats. What do you think of that?"

Marina nodded. "I think that's a very smart idea, Mum," she said with a smile.

As it happened, Marina did not find an owl that struck her as someone she'd like to have as a lifelong friend. They were all very aloof, she thought, even if they looked very smart. If they could talk, Marina imagined they'd be very good conversation if they didn't think they were better than you. She said so, and her mother nodded in agreement. So they went to look at the cats. In the Menagerie, the cats were free to roam the store, even though they usually stuck to their cushions perched on their high shelves, overlooking the store with sleepy eyes. In all the times she'd been in the Menagerie, Marina had only seen a cat actually up and moving two or three times. With her mother talking to the witch at the counter about cat care accoutrements, Marina ventured forth to visit the cats.

With careful respect, Marina offered her hand to each cat for a sniff. The fluffy white one with the squishy face blinked slowly and then completely ignored her with a twitch of his tail; the dark tabby closed his yellow eyes and accepted a few scratches behind his ears before his mood took a drastic turn for the worse and he snapped his teeth just a few hairs from her hand; there was an all black cat that just stared at her with big, round eyes, and Marina found herself feeling a little afraid of it; a very fat white-and-orange cat was sleeping and probably didn't realize she was even there; a smallish Siamese bumped her hand with her forehead and began to purr gently when Marina started petting her. She smiled and stepped back to move on, but the cat's blue eyes popped open and it stood up to follow Marina, nudging her hand again for more attention. With a giggle, Marina obliged, and turned to go get her mother. The cat leapt after her with a little mew and began twisting around her legs.

"Mum!" Marina called. "This one likes me!"

The shop witch leaned across the counter to look. "That's Maia. She loves children."

"She does this to most children?" Bobbie asked.

"Well, no. She doesn't often follow after anyone."

Marina crouched down to give Maia more attention. "Can we get her?"

Her mother nodded, and turned to pay the witch for the cat and a couple other items. Marina scooped up the cat and planted a kiss on the top of her head. Maia was content to purr in the girl's arms. The new trio left the Menagerie with a cushioned basket, cat food, and treats. Bobbie promised they'd stop at a Muggle pet store on the way home to get a collar and tag so no neighbors would find Maia and think she was a stray. In the end, they returned home from their day out with a multitude of new things, but most importantly they returned home with a happy kitty in a new pink collar.

 **EDIT: I switched around the plot a bit so not only have I changed the year this story starts in, which I explain more in my note at the beginning of the next chapter, I ALSO made an adjustment to Marina's parents. I originally had them engaged; I am un-engaging them because I'm going to do something with that LATER and also because my original plan didn't work out as I was trying to write it. Like I said in the summary, THIS IS VERY MUCH A WORK IN PROGRESS AND THINGS ARE JUST GONNA CHANGE SOMETIMES SORRY!**


	2. Chapter 2

**AN: Whoa, what? Another update so soon? Yep. If only I could redirect my inspiration to, y'know, the stories I already have in progress. That would be nice. You can probably expect another few chapters in quick succession over the next week or so here, I definitely have better things to do but this might not leave me alone for a long while. Also: there's a possibility I might skip many large details once I get past, like, the first week or so of first year and launch into what goes down in third-ish year, because some important things are gonna go down. I haven't decided yet. We'll see. But anyway, enjoy this!**

The rest of summer couldn't pass quickly enough for Marina. Her days were spent playing with her Muggle school friends before she had to leave for "a boarding school in Scotland Mum went to" and talking for hours with Quincy about what they might expect at Hogwarts.

"My dad was a Gryffindor," Quincy said one afternoon. He then dripped ice cream from his waffle cone on his arm. "Maybe I'll be in Gryffindor, too," he continued before licking the drip off his skin.

Marina tsked and passed him a paper napkin. She always wondered why he continued to choose cones over cups, considering his history of spilling his ice cream every single time. "My mum was a Slytherin. I don't think I'd mind being a Slytherin, but it isn't my ideal house, I don't think."

"Oh. I didn't know your mum was in Slytherin," Quincy said. "What about your dad?"

"Papa went to Beauxbatons, remember? He wasn't sorted. But Mum always says he'd've been a Hufflepuff."

"Oh, that's right. I always forget your dad's French." Quincy frowned at the sticky spot that had formed on his arm, tying to wipe it away with the napkin. "I hope you're not a Slytherin. Slytherin and Gryffindor have this massive house rivalry, my dad says. I wouldn't want to be your enemy."

Marina blinked and scrunched her eyebrows in a frown. "I wouldn't be your enemy if I'm a Slytherin. We're friends. And anyway, you might not be in Gryffindor." She ate a spoonful of her own ice cream to punctuate her statement.

"Yeah, but my dad says I'm too audaciously sanguine not to be." With a shrug, Quincy gave up on his arm and went back to eating his ice cream. His tongue was turning blue, Marina noticed. This was why she never got cotton candy ice cream.

"What does 'audaciously sanguine' mean?" she asked.

This made Quincy pause, cone still halfway to his mouth. It dripped on his shorts. "I don't know. He never explained it," he answered, wiping at the drip with the napkin.

Marina sighed. "Maybe it means you always think getting your ice cream on a cone is a good idea when it never is," she suggested.

He looked at her, faking dramatic offense. "Excuse you, but ice cream tastes better with a cone!"

Marina laughed. Quincy was good at making people laugh. He and his dad came with Marina and her papa to Diagon Alley in August, when the first of September was only a little over a week away. His antics entertained their small party on their quest for school supplies. Only when they entered Ollivander's Wand Shop did Quincy settle down. Getting a wand was serious business. The shop was dusty, dimly lit, and a bit cramped in front, though Marina could see the back of the shop extended seemingly forever. She sneezed upon entering.

Quincy stepped forward to approach Mr. Ollivander first. The white-haired wizard looked down and across the counter at Quincy, who was only slightly bouncing on the balls of his feet. "Good day, young sir," he said.

"Hello, my name is Quincy Jackson, and I need a wand for school. How do I pick one?" Quincy'd said it in a rush, with a grin. Marina hoped he hadn't offended Mr. Ollivander, because Mr. Ollivander looked slightly affronted.

"Mr. Jackson," he said seriously. "A wizard cannot simply pick a wand. The wand, you see, chooses the wizard." Marina feared the worst until Mr. Ollivander smiled and turned suddenly to skim the many, many, high shelves of wand boxes. "A wand selects the wizard it likes the best. A wizard's wand reflects the temperament of the wizard for this reason. So, I think—" Here he returned, and set a few long boxes on the counter. "—that these may perhaps like you."

The first wand Ollivander gave to Quincy caused the other wand boxes to fly off the counter and into the wandmaker. "Oh dear, that is certainly not the wand for you," he said, and took the wand back. Quincy was not deterred, however, and swished the second wand through the air, and it sent a rush of wind towards Marina, making her hair stick up in odd directions. Ollivander hummed, and Marina tried to smooth her hair back into shape with some help from her papa. Even still, Quincy took a third wand, and with only a second of hesitation, he accidentally shattered the lamp on Ollivander's counter. He winced, and set the wand back on the counter. Mr. Ollivander simply nodded and opened another box.

"I think this may be the one," Mr. Ollivander announced, presenting this new wand to Quincy. When nothing disastrous happened once he was holding it, Quincy gave it a careful flick. Cheerful golden sparks shot out of the tip, and Quincy grinned at the aging wizard behind the counter. "Pine, phoenix, 13 3/4″, pliant. This wand has chosen you, Mr. Jackson," he said gravely. "Respect it, and it will serve you well."

"Thank you, sir," Quincy said in a hushed voice, awed that he was now in possession of a wand of his own. He stepped back, and his dad ruffled his hair.

Marina didn't know very much about wands or what they were made of meant, but now she was curious. "What does his wand reflect about his temperament, Mr. Ollivander?" she asked, looking up at the old wizard's bright eyes. She saw them twinkle when she asked, and she was pretty sure that meant it was a good question that he would enjoy answering.

"Phoenix feather cores, young witch, are rare, but very talented. They're independent just like the birds they come from, but their allegiance can be won with time and respect. Occasionally they might act out on their own, so be forewarned, Mr. Jackson, that your wand may not always cooperate perfectly. Pine wood also chooses independent and unique individuals. It enjoys being used in a variety of ways, and will adapt to new magic easily, especially that of the nonverbal sort. Personally, I have never known an owner of a pine wand to die young, so Mr. Jackson may expect a long life. And a pliant wand, again, reflects the adaptability of the wizard. And now," Ollivander said to Marina, "I believe it is time for you to find your own wand, my child."

"How do you know so much about wands?" Marina asked as Ollivander picked up one of the wands that had rejected Quincy. "Oh, and my name is Marina."

"Marina Stewart-Lautrec," her papa added.

"Indeed, Mr. Lautrec." Mr. Ollivander nodded to her father and cast a serious eye down at Marina. "I have spent my entire life learning about the art of wandlore, Miss Stewart-Lautrec. It is my express business to know so much about wands. Let's see how this one likes you." He held the wand out over the counter for Marina to take.

She looked at Quincy, who grinned in encouragement, and she took the wand lightly in her fingers. She gave it a flick, and nothing happened. But then she looked up, and she realized that Mr. Ollivander's skin had turned a bright shade of fuchsia. He looked down at himself with raised eyebrows. "Perhaps not," he muttered, and took the wand back. Quincy giggled behind her, and Marina shot him a look. Ollivander disappeared amongst the shelves for a moment, and Marina was slightly worried he would abandon them, but then he came back with another couple of boxes and normally-colored skin. The second wand Marina tried set fire to Quincy's father's hat, which he put out immediately, and Marina quickly gave it back to Mr. Ollivander. When he handed her a third wand, with another twinkle in his pale blue eyes, Marina took it, hoping that that twinkle knew what it was doing. This wand felt cool to the touch, and wasn't polished so smoothly that she couldn't still feel the subtle grain of the wood. The handle end of it, unlike Quincy's straight-as-an-arrow wand, was carved into a gentle, twisted triangular prism. Marina, for no particular reason, swished it in a circle, and grinned at the wandmaker when the tip produced bluish sparks.

"This is the wand for me?" she asked.

"It is. Cedar, unicorn, 14", reasonably supple. Would you like to hear about its meaning?"

"Oh, yes, please!" Marina answered right away.

Ollivander talked while he accepted the proper galleons from the two fathers. "Cedar wood is loyal to extremely loyal wizards, or witches. Cedar-carriers show impressive mettle and a natural knack for perceptiveness, and I would even go so far as to say they would also make a very formidable opponent, even if one wouldn't think so by looking at them. A unicorn hair core is faithful and true, and is difficult to turn to the Dark Arts. They may not be very powerful, but they are consistent, and are never prone to fluctuation or blockages. Mishandle your wand, however, and your unicorn core may turn melancholy, Miss Stewart-Lautrec. Suppleness, as you know, reflects the adaptability and suppleness of the witch herself."

"Marina, come, it is getting late," her papa said gently.

"We should go, too, Quincy," Mr. Jackson said.

Marina nodded, and smiled at Mr. Ollivander. "Thank you so much sir!" Quincy grinned and nodded along.

"My pleasure," Mr. Ollivander replied. "Have a wonderful school year."

And that concluded Quincy and Marina's adventures in the wand shop, and indeed their adventures in Diagon Alley for the day. Marina and her papa flooed home after saying goodbye to Quincy and Mr. Jackson, and the first thing Marina did when they stepped into their sitting room was launch into a dramatic retelling of the entire day to her mother, who was sitting with a book in her comfy chair and remotely preparing dinner with lazy movements of her wand. Maia appeared to twist around Marina's ankles as she got to the part where Quincy almost knocked over an entire display of high-quality writing ink in Flourish and Blott's. At the completion of her story, Marina presented her wand to her mother for inspection and then knelt to scratch her cat behind the ears and down her spine.

"A very fine wand, indeed, my Mina," her mum said, still absently circling her own wand in the air next to her head, vaguely in the direction of the kitchen.

—

That final week was perhaps the longest week of Marina's entire life, but at long last it was over with the end of August. Theo Lautrec and Bobbie Stewart both accompanied Marina onto platform 9 3/4 with plenty of time to spare so they could properly see her off. Marina wasted no time in trying to find Quincy, who'd told her he and his parents would get there a little early too.

"Mina, darling, Quincy's definition of 'a little early' and our definition of 'a little early' are not the same," her mum tried to explain when she saw her daughter immediately start scanning the crowds. "He won't be here yet, I can promise you." She reached for Marina's swiveling head to try and smooth down the frizzy curls that were still sticking up in odd places. "And besides," she continued, "Quincy's taller, so I'm sure he'll be able to find you before you can find him."

It was another nineteen minutes before Quincy showed up with his parents, and by this point there were only eleven minutes until the train would depart from the station. There was a large clock on the platform, and Marina had been watching the time very closely. Anyway, her mother was right: Quincy pounced on Marina from behind, literally jumping at her and grabbing her shoulders as he landed.

"Hi!" he shouted. "Are you as excited as I am?"

"Quincy! You said you'd be early!" Marina shouted back. And then she looked up. "Good morning Mr. and Mrs. Jackson," she greeted her friend's parents.

"Hello, Mina," Mr. Jackson replied. Mrs. Jackson still looked a little bewildered by the wizarding train platform, but she was a Muggle, so Marina supposed that was only fair. She imagined that if she were a Muggle, everything in the wizarding world would make her very bewildered, too.

The two children said their final goodbyes to their parents and made sure they had their trunks and pets properly loaded onto their trolleys before they set off for the Hogwarts Express, a big scarlet steam engine with cars that trailed seemingly forever behind it, disappearing from view behind the billowing clouds of steam. The two wandered the length of the train searching for an empty compartment, and at last happened upon one towards the middle. They had to work together to get their trunks up into the overhead space, but at long last they could collapse on the seats. Marina held Maia in her lap, stroking her fur along her back.

"It's really happening," Quincy said, letting out a happy sigh. "We're gonna be off, living without our parents for the first time."

"We'll still be in a school with teachers. It's not like we'll all be completely alone. That just wouldn't be safe," Marina pointed out. "I am excited to explore the castle, though. My mum always had great stories." She sat up a little in excitement. "Did you know there's a place in the dungeons somewhere where you can look out of a big window and see the mermaids in the lake?"

"There aren't mermaids in the lake," Quincy said, frowning.

Marina nodded. "Yes, there are! My mum said so!"

"I've never heard anything about mermaids in the lake."

"Well my mum said she saw them. And they waved to students sometimes, even!"

"Well, maybe she lied about it!" Quincy argued. "My dad never talked about seeing mermaids through a window in the dungeons."

"Why would she lie to me about there being mermaids in the lake?" Marina cried.

"I don't know, but that's what Slytherins do! They lie about things sometimes to make themselves look better!"

"But she's my mum! She would never lie to me like that!" Marina let out an exasperated huff and crossed her arms. Maia jumped off of her lap. "Fine, maybe she's lied about little things—"

"You see!"

"I meant little things like Christmas presents so I'd be surprised!" Marina was upset. Why was Quincy being so stubborn about this? "What do you have against my mother?" she yelled.

"She's a Slytherin! Slytherins are bad people!" Quincy answered.

Marina snorted. "So you say now, but what about all the times you're around my mum? Hm? You've never looked at her like she's a bad person, ever!"

"I didn't know she was a Slytherin until you told me last week!"

"Then why does that have to change your opinion of her? She's my mum!"

There was a knock on the compartment door before someone slid it open. "Er, hello," a redheaded, rather gangly boy said from the doorway. "I'm in the compartment next door, and, well, I heard yelling…are you alright?"

Quincy and Marina snapped out of their intense zone, and stared at the boy. "We're okay, I s'pose," Quincy answered. "Mina?"

Marina didn't answer, just turned her head to look out the window. At some point in their argument the train had started moving. Now the beautiful countryside sped past, the lovely green hills reminding her to breathe, calming her down.

"Right…" The other boy shifted his weight from foot to foot, nervous and seeming like he didn't quite know what to do next. "Well, er, my name is Gideon Prewett." Marina smiled a bit. Introductions were always a good place to start.

"I'm Quincy Jackson. This my friend Marina Stewart-Lautrec."

Usually she would cut in with something about how everyone usually calls her Mina, but she didn't much feel like talking. She was just tired now. It was probably sort of rude to ignore Gideon like she was, but she didn't want to turn around and have to look at Quincy.

"Okay. Er…see you at the feast, then," Gideon said at last, and escaped the scene, closing the compartment door behind him.

Quincy tried a few times to start up more civil conversation again, and a few times she did smile—he was good at joking around and being funny, it was very difficult not to at least smile—but Marina wasn't having any of it. She wasn't so upset anymore, but she was still angry. Really she didn't expect Quincy could be so…so mean! He'd known her mum just about as long as she herself had known her mum, and now he felt he could change the entire way he thought about her just because he recently learned she'd been a Slytherin? It made no sense, and it was unfair. Marina usually didn't mind a few things that didn't make sense, and often she found things that didn't make sense funny, like that one time she was out with her papa and they saw a woman walking around with no shoes on, but this wasn't just a little harmless thing. This was a big thing, an important thing, and it didn't make sense in the way that ended up with an unfair ending, and that frustrated her, because if Quincy would just think logically in a way that made sense then it wouldn't be unfair to her mum. He was judging her, after he already knew her, based on a school rivalry he'd heard about from his dad. What sense could that possibly make in any world?

So she spent the journey to the castle in silence and in a bad mood. At some point an older student came to let them know they were nearing the castle and should change into their uniforms, and Quincy ducked out of the compartment to let her change first before she did the same for him. Then she gathered Maia into her arms again and awaited their impending arrival.


	3. Chapter 3

**AN: Hello again! This is my second update of the day, actually. Over the weekend I decided to change the timeline of this story, like completely. As in I shifted Marina and Quincy up a year from the Marauders, instead of being in the same year as the Marauders. I do have reasons for this, and all of them are petty, but mostly I didn't want to run into the whole issue of possible other characters intruding in either Lily Evans' or the Marauders' dorm space, or risking becoming too Mary Sue-ish by putting Marina in the same year as the Marauders/Lily. So I updated the previous chapter slightly. All that changed was that the pair met Gideon Prewett on the train rather than Peter Pettigrew. I also spent about an hour and a half trying to figure out who they might've met on the train if it wasn't Peter, and at long last settled on including Molly Weasley somehow kind of not really. So Fabian and Gideon are her two brothers, of course, but now they're her two younger brothers, and Gideon is the youngest and is now in Marina and Quincy's year. So there you go. A lot of work for very minimal changes that will probably end up as rather massive changes. Anyway, enjoy! Reviews are always welcome!**

A very large man by the name of Hagrid directed the first years in his very loud, booming voice into a small fleet of boats once the students got off the train. He swung his lantern as he led them all, most of them probably the same weird mix of terrified and excited that Marina was. She did not get into a boat with Quincy, since she was still upset wit him, and instead she sat in a boat with three other girls. It didn't seem like they knew each other either. Of course, they all gasped and oohed and ahhed as they approached the huge castle, and when the gigantic man led them through the doors, the group of first years was brought to a halt in front of a severe-looking woman, tall and thin and topped with a fashionably tilted pointed hat. The woman turned out to be Deputy Headmistress McGonagall, and she took over from the huge man she called Hagrid and led the first years into the Great Hall to be sorted. Marina looked up at the ceiling, amazed to find it wasn't there beyond the floating candlesticks.

"It's charmed to reflect the sky, you know," someone whispered to her left. That made sense. It was beautiful work.

Professor McGonagall went down an alphabetical list of the first years, calling each student up to sit on a stool and wear an old, raggedy hat: the Sorting Hat. Then the hat would shout out a house, and the whole hall would applaud, and the newly sorted first year would go join their house at their respective table. Marina didn't pay too much attention and let her eyes wander around the hall, imagining what it would be like as an older student, returning to Hogwarts and coming back to the castle already knowing it so well. She was very excited to start exploring it all.

"Quintillius Jackson!" McGonagall called. Now Marina was paying attention. She was still mad at him, but she did want to see where he'd be sorted. If he was a Gryffindor after all, then what would that mean for her?

The hat hadn't even sat on Quincy's head for more than ten seconds before it shouted "Gryffindor!" Of course.

Marina let her attention wander again after Quincy waltzed over to his new house's table, grinning and soaking up the applause. Quincy followed his father, so would that mean Marina would follow her mother? She knew Quincy was more like his father, and that was probably why he ended up in his dad's house, but was Marina more like her mother or her father? She couldn't tell. She liked things that made sense, like her mum, but she wasn't very good at making wise decisions like her mum always did. Her mum was amazing at prioritizing and comparing pros and cons and figuring out which option would be the best, and Marina could be like that too, but she didn't like to do that. She had a bad habit of thinking too hard about what might happen depending on what she might choose, and that was something her mum never seemed to do.

"Gideon Prewett!" There was that boy that she and Quincy kind of met on the train. He went into Gryffindor.

And besides, she was way more inclined to go on new adventures than her mum was. Her papa liked to go on adventures too, but he liked going on adventures so he could have fun with the people he was adventuring with, while Marina would go on adventures all by herself if that meant she could explore something new. And she thought she probably had more imagination than both her parents combined, although maybe that was just a kid thing. She wasn't sure if any adults had imagination like kids did.

She wasn't sure she was enough like her mum to be a Slytherin, and she didn't think she was enough like her papa to be a probably-Hufflepuff. So where, then, did she belong?

"Marina Stewart-Lautrec!" McGonagall shouted. It was now or never. But she might not be able to get away with never, so she supposed it was now or now.

Marina walked up to the stool and sat down, her stomach a rolling mess of nerves. This one moment would decide her fate for the next seven years, of course she was nervous! She felt the hat settle over her hair, and then all of a sudden there was a voice in her head:

"My, my. You're a curious one. The brains and drive of a Slytherin, the pure heart of a Hufflepuff…but your motives don't fit either…hmmmmm," drawled what Marina assumed was the Sorting Hat. What kind of magic must have been cast on this old hat to create this? She wondered at the years and years it must've taken to perfect it. "Yes, that curious mind is all Ravenclaw! With your ready mind, you'll do well with those of wit and learning in the wise old House of Ravenclaw!"

Then, outside her head, the hat shouted "Ravenclaw!" McGonagall lifted the hat from Marina's head and she smiled as she slid off the stool and headed for the table where she saw many hands beckoning her over.

Marina was content to go back to idly people-watching as the last students were sorted. Then Dumbledore made a speech she only half-listened to, and then a banquet appeared on the tables and students started tucking in. Marina surveyed her options. She wasn't very hungry, but she served herself some potatoes drenched in herbs and butter anyway. When she woke up in the morning she'd feel better; she was probably tired and she'd gotten into a fight with her best friend, so it was understandable that she didn't have much of an appetite. Or maybe she'd have more of an appetite when some dessert appeared.

"Did you see the chicken a little farther down the table?"

Marina jumped, startled out of her thoughts. The girl sitting next to her was looking at her expectantly, blinking behind thick glasses. Marina cleared her throat. "Sorry?" she asked.

"A little farther down the table, there's baked chicken with butter and herbs. You look like the kind of person that likes butter and herbs on a lot of things, like on your potatoes," the girl said.

She leaned forward to look where the girl said, and there was indeed chicken with butter and herbs, but baked chicken wasn't her favorite. It tended to be dry, and she definitely did not like dry meat, no matter how much butter sauce it was swimming in. "Thanks," Marina said, "but I don't really like baked chicken. I'm not very hungry right now anyway."

The girl smiled. "Well, that's okay. There's bound to be something you like sometime when you're more hungry. I'm Annie Brennan. You're a first year too, aren't you?"

Marina nodded. "I'm Marina Stewart-Lautrec," she added, again too preoccupied to get into nicknames. She kind of liked Annie. Annie was very upfront, apparently, and that was refreshing to Marina.

"You have two last names? That's odd. They sound really nice the way you say them, though."

"Thank you." Marina expected Annie to ask about it, because Marina probably would've asked if she met someone with a hyphenated last name and didn't have one herself, but Annie didn't ask.

Instead, Annie switched topics. "I'm a Muggleborn, are you? I'm so excited to learn about all of this. I still can't believe this isn't a dream sometimes," Annie said, finishing with a breathy laugh.

Marina shook her head. "I don't know if my entire family is pureblooded, but both my parents are wizards, so I guess that makes me a pureblood." Annie raised her eyebrows and cocked her head. "I don't really know how blood status works either, so don't ask," Marina said quickly, flashing a smile. "But I can't imagine how it must be to never know about magic and then suddenly being thrown into it like this."

"My dad fainted when Professor McGonagall showed up at our doorstep to explain it all. My parents are really religious, Irish Catholic, you know, so they had a really hard time coming to terms with it all." Annie frowned down at her own plate for a moment, but brightened up again and turned back to Marina. "What class are you most looking forward to?"

Marina smiled back; Annie's grin was infectious. "Charms, I think. My mum knows so many spells, and I've always wanted to learn how to do magic just like her," she answered. "What about you?"

Annie washed down a large mouthful of her beef with a drink of pumpkin juice before she answered. Mentally, Marina cringed. Pumpkin juice in no way tasted good with meals that weren't breakfast or dessert, she thought. Maybe it was just because Annie was a Muggleborn and hadn't ever had pumpkin juice before. "I want to learn about everything," she gushed. "I'm sure I'll never get tired of it!"

Marina herself thought she might get tired of school eventually. There would be something she hated, of course, and all homework was annoying, no matter what it was about. Still, on the morning of their first day of classes, Marina was nevertheless excited for all of it. Her first day as a Hogwarts student! Finally, she was really on her way to being a real, proper witch.

The Ravenclaw head of house, Professor Flitwick, had passed out everyone's class schedules the night before at the end of the feast, so all they had to worry about at breakfast was their collective nervous excitement about their first Hogwarts class ever: History of Magic at 8 o'clock. Marina sat with the first year Ravenclaw girls during breakfast, as she and the three other girls had unanimously decided they would all try to be friends, and all they could think about was the upcoming day.

"My sister and brother both hated History of Magic—they say it's the most boring class there could possibly be," Lark Maxwell said, speaking around the bite of scone in her mouth. She was the middle child of five siblings, something Marina could never imagine, and she was very loud.

"I might like to learn about the history of the wizarding world, though," Annie put in. "I don't know anything about it. It sounds interesting."

"Maybe it would be," Lark said, "if it were taught by someone interesting."

"What do you mean?" Marina asked.

"Professor Binns is a ghost," Artemis Rowle answered—sort of. Marina wasn't sure how well she'd get along with Artemis because she didn't do very much talking and what she did say wasn't usually what Marina was ever looking for, not exactly. She didn't answer questions straight, that is, and Marina was too impatient for answers to work them out of Artemis's cryptic responses.

"A ghost professor does sound interesting!" Annie protested. She took a violent bite of bacon.

"Oh, but he's so boring." Lark drew out the word boring, rolling her eyes as she did so. "He just drones on and on, and barely even pays any attention to the class! There's no opportunity for discussion, or questions, even!"

That did sound rather boring. Marina, for one, was sure to have questions at some point, as she often did. Lark sounded like she was really looking forward to class discussion, too. That made sense; she did an awful lot of talking, and she had an awful lot of opinions, so she did have an awful lot to say. That didn't deter Marina, though, and by the time the girls were on their way up flights of stairs and down corridors to the History of Magic classroom, she was excited and looking forward to class again.

It turned out that Professor Binns was just as boring as Lark said he was. The Ravenclaw first years had History of Magic with the Hufflepuffs, so instead of paying rapt attention to her first professor of her first class on her first day, Marina amused herself by watching not one, but two Hufflepuff boys nodding off to sleep in their seats while the rest of them made a visible effort to look alert and interested, likely for the sake of the professor, as they tried to hide yawns. She didn't know if she could actually associate Hufflepuffs with drowsiness, but she supposed she'd have to find out. There would be other classes with Hufflepuffs, Marina was certain. Then she wondered was Maia was up to at that moment.

After History of Magic, they had Charms with Professor Flitwick. Marina liked Flitwick, at least from what she'd seen of him so far, so this class would surely turn out better than the previous one. And anyway, this was the class Marina was most looking forward to. Ravenclaw had Charms with Gryffindors, apparently, so Marina half-listened to the tiny Charms professor explain that this class would be largely graded on participation, that it would focus on the practical over the theoretical, etc., etc. The other half of her attention was on the Gryffindors. They didn't cheerfully pretend to pay close attention like the Hufflepuffs did, and Marina respected their honesty. They either paid attention, or they didn't and passed notes to each other or outright chatted.

Marina noticed that, like the Ravenclaws, and the Hufflepuffs now that she thought about it, the Gryffindors seemed like they all made some sort of pact to be friends in their dormitories. Or they just naturally hit it off, Marina didn't know. In the back of the class sat Quincy, Gideon Prewett, and two other boys. They were busy not paying attention, aside from one dark-skinned boy who would glance over at the other three's antics and roll his eyes every so often. Quincy glanced up and caught her eye, grin slipping slightly when he saw her. Marina blinked and turned to look at the Gryffindor girls. There were five Gryffindor girls, and they, like the boys, were only sort of paying attention.

When Annie kicked her under their shared table, Marina snapped out of her thoughts just in time to hear Flitwick say, "Now, due to the nature of our class, I'll be assigning sections from your textbooks to read before coming to class. We have only three hours a week at our disposal, so it is imperative that you are familiar with what we'll be doing in class before we do it, so I can cut straight to the 'how' and skip the 'what.' Tomorrow we'll start learning our first spell, so tonight I'm assigning pages seven through sixteen. This isn't the whole chapter, only the history and theory of the spell, for I intend to lecture over the execution in class tomorrow. That will be all for today—"

Marina stopped listening. She could hear Flitwick say something about seeing him if anyone needed help finding their next class, which was nice of him, but she was rather more occupied with watching Quincy and the other boys again to see what they'd do. Now that class was over, kids were getting up and milling around to chat, and the four Gryffindor boys stood. Gideon happened to glance over, and smiled slightly at Marina before quickly looking away again. For a moment, she thought about going to talk to Quincy, but then shook the idea out of her head. She wanted him to come to her, ideally with an apology for what he said about her mum.

At that very moment, the boy in question started towards her, a determined look on his face. It was almost as if he'd read her mind, though Marina knew he hadn't. If he did, though, hopefully he caught the part about saying he was sorry. She kept her eyes on her desk until Quincy was standing less than a foot away.

"Hello," Annie said. "I like your eyes. They're a very nice brown."

Marina could almost feel Quincy floundering. "Thanks?" he said, thrown off guard.

"Annie Brennan, this is Quincy Jackson. Quincy, Annie," Marina said, sighing and looking up, but still keeping her eyes resolutely forward.

"Hi," Annie said again. Marina saw her grinning out of the corner of her eye, and then Annie brought it down to a light smile and turned her attention to Marina. "I think I see Lark flailing at me. See you in the corridor, okay?" Annie touched her shoulder before getting up and wandering away.

Quincy cleared his throat. "Um…I owe you an apology," he said.

"I think you do, too." Marina looked up at Quincy, who was still standing next to her desk. His shoulders were set confidently, but he looked stiff. He was wearing his uncomfortable, guilty face. Whatever he was about to say, it would be genuine.

"I'm sorry I judged your mum and called her a liar just because she was in Slytherin," he said in one breath. "It wasn't fair of me, especially because I know your mum is really nice and a good person, even though she can be kind of scary sometimes." Quincy clearly looked very relieved after he said it all, and then he gave Marina a hopeful, pleading look. "Can you forgive me? I really want to still be your friend."

Marina gave him a reluctant smile. "Alright, I forgive you." The wide smile Quincy gave her was almost blinding. She glanced around him at his three new friends. "So those are the other Gryffindor boys?"

"Yup! Come on, I'll introduce you to them," he said brightly, dragging her up by the arm. He made to go over immediately before she stopped him.

"Hold on a moment," she scolded. "I have to get my things first so we can leave straight afterward."

She already knew Gideon from the train, of course, but the other boys were Kingsley Shacklebolt, the attention-payer, and Frank Longbottom. Kingsley was very polite, and he seemed much more mature than an eleven-year-old-boy really should be. Frank, she could tell, was jolly and carefree.

Annie had waited, true to her word, just outside the classroom door for Marina. More introductions were made, as Marina had walked out with Quincy and the other boys. All first years had a free period just before lunch, and Annie said Lark and Artemis had already gone to check out the library. Marina agreed they should follow along. The girls made their exit after the boys turned their noses up at the idea of spending free time in a library.

—

The rest of their week went off without a hitch. This was probably made easier by only being half a week, seeing as the first day of classes was actually a Wednesday. Sadly, their first three days of school were not without homework. Light homework, but still. On Saturday afternoon, the Ravenclaw first year girls sat in one of the cozy study nooks in the common room, sorting through their assignments. Artemis dragged over a chair, while the other girls sat on the large cushions left there just for that purpose. Lark had a sheet of parchment out, and using her Herbology textbook as a makeshift desk, she made a list of all their assignments, in order from most important to least important by deadline. From Marina's lap, Maia kept swiping at Lark's moving quill.

"This way," she said, finishing up the list, "we can prioritize our work and plan how early we'll need to start it."

"This is a great idea," Annie said. "It's lucky we all have the same classes because I do not have the dedication to organize something like that," she laughed.

Lark shot her a look. "It's lucky I do have dedication, then. My siblings always made up priority lists like this, and it helped them a lot. They have a top notch model for revision schedules, too, for when we have to start worrying about exams."

Marina smiled at her friends, but she was losing interest again. This was starting to be a problem with her, this absent-mindedness. She kept tuning out what her professors were saying in favor of looking around the classroom, and she'd had to copy notes from Artemis, who was an excellent note-taker, three times already, and that was only in as many days! The first three days! Hopefully her classmates would stop being more interesting than her professors once she got used to all of them, and then she could start paying more attention.

"Well, girls, I know we only really have to read sections in our textbooks, but I, for one, want to get started on this longest bit for Transfiguration," Lark announced. "I'll just go post this list in our dorm and then I think I'll head to the library." She stood, gathered her books, rescued her quills from the Siamese, and strode to the stairwell door.

"Does she have tacks?" Artemis asked.

"You have a point," Annie said. "Maybe she packed some tape in her trunk? We don't know any hang-things-on-the-wall spells yet."

"I think you mean sticking charms," Marina gently corrected, scratching Maia behind her ears as consolation for the loss of Lark's quills. Annie was a Muggleborn; it wasn't her fault she didn't know what a sticking charm was.

"I know I have Spello-tape," Artemis said, and got up to follow after Lark, presumably to make sure their friend could follow through with her plan to post the homework list.

Annie took out her own yellow spiral-bound notebook and started writing out a much more vague list of assignments than what Lark had compiled. With a smile, Marina touched a finger to the metal spiral. "You brought a Muggle notebook?" she asked.

Finishing her list, Annie nodded. "My parents thought bunches of loose parchment were inconvenient, so they had me bring a notebook for each class to take notes in. We have one more textbook than we do classes, so I have this extra one. I guess I could use it to write all my assignments in." With careful fingers, Annie screwed the lid back on her pot of ink, which had been balancing rather precariously on the thick plush carpet. "Do you think Lark will keep up her homework priority list for our dormitory?"

Marina laughed. "She might, if only because she wants the recognition for it. I certainly hope she does. I'm bound to miss assignments all the time if I keep spacing during lessons like I've been doing."

Lark did indeed keep up her list-making, and she made a loud announcement to the dormitory every time she added something to it and every time she crossed something off once its deadline passed. Sheet upon sheet of parchment was added to the list with Spello-tape until it nearly touched the floor, much to Maia's delight. Sometime in October, Marina, who discovered she had a knack for Charms, discovered a spell to erase ink so they could stop wasting parchment and instead rotate erased sheets from the top to the bottom of the list.

Thankfully, as the term progressed, Marina found a way to stop her terrible habits concerning her lack of attention…mostly. Charms was turning out to be pretty easy for her, so she figured it was okay to people-watch during the time they took in class to practice, as long as she'd gotten the hang of performing the day's charm already. She was the same way in Potions, Herbology, and Astronomy. If she finished early, she let her attention wander. History of Magic was something of a joke, and she got much more out of reading her textbook and ignoring Professor Binns altogether, she found, so she often used that class to either read the section Binns was droning about that week, or she worked on other classes' homework. Transfiguration was tricky, because unlike Charms, where it was possible to perform most spells without a very deep understanding of the theory behind them, transfiguring objects and animals required much more thought, concentration, and understanding. Marina was alright with the theory, but she had a difficult time applying it when she went to perform a transfiguration. She didn't have much extra time to let her mind go in that class. Defense Against the Dark Arts wasn't as difficult as Transfiguration—it was more like Charms in that respect—but that was one class where she often had to be on her guard. Professor Raleigh was strict about students paying attention, especially because, again, like Charms, he focused on the practical in class, and most of the spells they learned were dangerous. He had a habit of mildly hexing students if he caught them not paying attention.

Somehow, Marina always found time to talk to Quincy, whether it was at meals when they would visit each other's tables, or during free periods in the library (despite his earlier aversion to the idea), or after classes had ended out on the grounds. Lark and Annie teased her about it sometimes, Lark more so than Annie, but Marina brushed it off every time they called him her boyfriend or made a kissy face at her. She happened to know Lark fancied Roger Meadowes, a Hufflepuff second year, so in her mind that evened out the score, even if she didn't tease about it.

Before they knew it, Christmas holiday was upon them, and the Ravenclaw girls' dorm was a wreck as all four girls rushed to pack their trunks. Marina wasn't sure if she could leave anything in the dormitory over break, so she opted to pack absolutely everything. And anyway, this way she wouldn't mistakenly leave behind something she actually needed. She spent the train ride home with Annie, Maia, and Quincy in a compartment to themselves.

"Are you sure you wouldn't rather ride with your housemates?" Marina asked him again.

Quincy unwrapped his third cauldron cake of the train ride. "Well," he said, "Gideon's riding with his older brother and sister, Fabian and Molly, and Molly's boyfriend, Arthur. Frank asked Kingsley to help him start some of our holiday homework, and I think they'd rather have me out of the compartment anyway, because I don't need Kingsley's tutoring. And anyway, you're my friend too."

With a nod, Annie piped up. "That makes sense. Lark's sitting with her siblings too, and Artemis wanted to...well, I don't know where she is, but she probably has family she wanted to ride with." She blinked at Quincy. "Are we friends?"

It was funny how Annie always managed to rattle Quincy. In Marina's experience, his confidence was unshakable, but she saw him trip over himself, literally and figuratively, multiple times around Annie. Like now:

"Are we-yes? I think? I mean-if you want-" he sputtered.

Marina bit her lip to keep from laughing. Annie caught her eye and reached over to stroke Maia along her spine.

"I thought so," Annie said, smiling. "See, I was almost certain that we are friends, but I couldn't tell for sure. Thanks for clearing that up, friend."

Quincy nodded, clearly ready to move on from the whole thing. He could be very blunt, Marina knew, but Annie was a different kind of bluntness altogether, the kind of out-of-the-blue bluntness that threw Quincy off somehow. It was all very interesting, in Marina's opinion.

When the Hogwarts Express finally pulled into Platform 9 3/4, Marina, Annie, and Quincy all crowded together at the window to see if they could spot their respective parents.

"Look, there's your mum," Quincy said, grabbing Marina's shoulder and pointing through the glass as best as he could. Sure enough, Bobbie Stewart stood on the platform with-strangely-two trolleys ready, her hands stuffed deep in the pockets of her coat.

Annie sighed. "I can't see either my mum or my dad," she said.

"I'm sure they're here. Maybe they had trouble going through the wall and they're waiting for you just outside in the station," Marina suggested.

They scrambled to gather up their belongings and avoid being trampled in the rush to get off the train and to their families. Marina clutched Maia against her chest, holding her to make sure she wouldn't escape and get lost, while Quincy lugged both his and Marina's trunks to Ms. Stewart.

"Mum!" Marina called.

"Mina, sweetheart, I feel like I haven't seen you in years and years!" Bobbie answered, coming to meet the students halfway with both trolleys. "Quincy, I'll be taking you home, too. Here, let's load these trolleys..." With a quick flick of her wand, the witch levitated both her daughter's and Quincy's trunks onto the trolleys before turning to Annie, who was, for once, silent in her awe. "I don't believe we've met, my dear," Marina's mother said kindly.

That was Marina's cue. Introductions, introductions. "Mum, this is Annie Brennan. Annie, this is my mum."

"Ms. Stewart; it's a pleasure to meet you, Annie," Marina's mum said quickly, holding out her hand.

Annie seemed to get over her momentary stunned state and shook Bobbie's hand, grinning. "Pleased to meet you, too. I didn't know you could do magic without a spell," she said.

Marina grinned at Quincy. Annie and her blunt comments were back from their short respite.

Of course, Marina's mum was unfazed. "Nonverbal magic, dear. You'll learn it around sixth or seventh year. Do you have parents to find?"

"They're Muggles, and I don't see them, so maybe they're waiting outside the platform."

"Mum, can walk Annie back into King's Cross?" Marina asked, taking her mother's hand.

Bobbie smiled at the three friends looking up at her expectantly. "I don't see why not," she answered. "I'll take care of your trunk-there." With another motion of her wand at Annie's trunk, it began to float a few inches off the ground.

"Thank you, Ms. Stewart," Annie said with a wide grin.

The group of four made their way through the bustling crowd of parents and students and owls and luggage trolleys, headed for the platform exit. It turned out that Annie's dad was, in fact, waiting nervously on a bench near the brick entrance to Platform 9 3/4. More introductions happened between the adults, and then the three friends promised each other they'd write over the holiday, and then the Brennans parted ways with Marina and Quincy and Bobbie.

Side-apparating was much too difficult what with two children and trunks and a cat, and Marina hated flooing, so of course they drive home through Muggle London in the Stewart-Lautrec family car. After dropping Quincy off at his home, Marina was finally able to dash up the stairs of her own house and collapse on her own bed in her own room. She hadn't realized how much she actually missed it.


	4. Chapter 4

**AN: Hello again, sorry again for the updates without any new chapters...do you still get alerts for editing a chapter? Anyway, here's our next chapter, picking up from where we last saw our lovely little first years going home for Christmas. I feel like this chapter's pretty long, but maybe it only feels like it is because it took so much effort. I'm still planning out the future of this story, and some plot elements are getting started now, and half of them are things I came up with last minute as I was writing. Yikes, right? Anyway, who's ready to read more of what I think still counts as exposition? Enjoy!**

It turned out that she also hadn't realized, over Christmas, how much she'd missed the high four-poster bed with its curving bronze frame, the satiny blue hangings she could drag shut around her when she wanted, the cozy feather duvet with its scrolling bronze- and copper-colored embroidery. She'd missed sharing a room with her friends and Lark's constant chatter, Annie's blunt remarks and the cheery aura she exuded, even Artemis and her odd way of answering questions. Even her classes! She'd missed Charms with Professor Flitwick, Potions with Slughorn, even Transfiguration with no-nonsense Professor McGonagall. And magic. Of course Marina had missed magic. It would be years and years and years before she could use magic outside of school.

At least Marina didn't have to miss Quincy, since he still lived just around the corner. They saw each other often over the holiday, working on homework, playing Exploding Snap when it was too cold to be outside, even spending New Year's with his parents (they'd invited Marina and her parents over for a little party).

But oh, was it good to be back at Hogwarts.

Second term was about as uneventful as the first. Not to say it was bad—it was actually a pretty good term, as far as school terms went. Their professors continued to ease the first years into the Hogwarts workload, still assigning mostly reading with an essay here and there. They got a week of Easter holiday between the end of March and into April, and once students returned to school, professors began to talk exams.

Annie was actually excited, of all things! Marina would think that nothing was as arduous and terrible as taking exams, but maybe that was another muggleborn quirk. When Lark, incredulously, because Lark was very stressed out about exams, asked Annie why she was so chipper in the face of the worst and most strenuous hurdle they'd have to jump that would determine whether the students had learned anything at all over the year, and whether they would all move on to the next year or not, Annie just laughed.

"I think you all forget that I've never had magic in my life until coming here. This is all still so exciting for me! I'm a student in a school of magic, and I'm going to take magical exams," she answered, grinning in the way only Annie could.

"That's ridiculous," Lark said, surrounded by a sea of parchment decorated with her own large, slightly messy cursive. "How aren't you worried about this? And anyway, exams are exams, magical or not." She blew a bit of hair out of her face and went back to trying to sort through her Herbology notes.

Annie shrugged, tickling Maia's nose with the end of her quill and giggling when the cat batted back at the feather. "I don't know, but these exams sure beat maths and grammar. I'd take Hogwarts exams over regular school exams any day!"

Marina had to agree. Her mum and papa had put her through Muggle school up until Hogwarts, and she would also rather go through magical exams. Still, while she wasn't worried about how she might do, she was certainly not looking forward to actually taking them. She hated the atmosphere taking an exam created; everyone silent, the only sound coming from various noses sniffling around the room and paper pages turning. It was stuffy and oppressive and she found she got too bored to focus on what she was supposed to do. Somehow she always managed to do alright anyway. At least Hogwarts exams came with a practical part where she could stand up and actually do something.

Despite the sweat, blood, and tears (Marina suddenly found herself very nervous just after exams and her palms just wouldn't seem to dry, Artemis gave herself eight paper cuts from her notes, and Lark had a breakdown one night when she was up late in their shared dormitory studying), the girls got through it all. Marina herself received very respectable "Outstanding" grades in Charms, Defense, and Potions, respectable enough "Exceeds Expectations"s in Astronomy, Herbology, and History because she had a slightly difficult time remembering the straight facts required for those classes, and an "Acceptable" in Transfiguration, which she was disappointed with, but it wasn't unexpected. She still couldn't quite wrap her head around the practical element of Transfiguration.

It had become something of a tradition over the course of first year to spend the rides on the Hogwarts Express in a compartment of just the three of them, Marina and Quincy and Annie. Quincy, who had won a bet with Gideon about whether or not he'd get an O in Charms—Quincy was rubbish at Charms but Marina helped him study and it was enough to scrape by with an O—had ten galleons to buy them each a treat from the trolley, and he bought Marina an extra cauldron cake for her role in his winning the money.

The train rolled into the station, as it always did, in the evening, and while Annie was awake enough—somehow—both Marina and Quincy were suppressing yawns. With no leftover stressors to keep her awake, and the train's gentle swaying and rumbling, Marina found herself dozing by the end of the ride, and she figured it was probably the same for Quincy. When they piled off the train, luggage and cat and all, the three lazily surveyed the platform to see whose parents had arrived to pick them up.

Quincy suddenly pointed into the crowd. "There's my dad; I think I see my mum too. Come on," he announced, and started heading towards Mr. Jackson's tall form. Marina and Annie followed him for lack of a better option just yet. As they approached, other parents and students moved around, giving them a better look. "I can see your mum and dad too, Mina!"

When they finally reached the adults, Marina saw that her parents seemed…well, almost giddy. That was unusual. They were happy people, as far as she knew, but they seemed much happier today than any other day. Seeing her parents in such a good mood in turn lifted the drowsy fog from Marina's head, and she no longer felt like all she wanted to do was collapse in her own bed.

"Mina, petite chèrie, welcome home!" her papa exclaimed, noticing the three students first. He pulled Marina in for a rather dramatic hug, which she returned, laughing.

Oh wait. Introductions again. "This is Annie," Marina announced as soon as she got free of her papa, gesturing with her arms to present her friend to the parents.

A round of "hello"s and "good to meet you"s ensued, as well as the inevitable "how was the end of the school year" questions. All the while, Marina eyes the way her parents kept eyeing each other with almost childlike grins. The Jacksons bade the Stewart-Lautrecs and Annie goodnight before stepping away to floo back home. Annie exited the platform with Marina and her parents, again, and found Annie's father, again, sitting on a nearby bench waiting for his daughter. With smiles all around, the girls hugged and promised to owl each other as much as they could over summer.

"I never knew you went by a nickname, Marina," Annie commented in parting. "Anyway, have a good summer!"

Marina smiled and shook her head at her friend's quirky conversation habits, but wished her a good summer all the same.

In the car on the way home, Marina could no longer stand not knowing what was going on between her parents, especially when they were being so obvious about knowing something she didn't. "Alright, what have you two been giggling about all this time?" she asked, putting on her most serious inquiring face and crossing her arms in the backseat.

Bobbie laughed. "We have not been giggling," she protested, proceeding to giggle and tuck a bit of her neatly styled golden hair behind her ear. To Theo, she asked, "Do you want to say?"

Her papa grinned, and made eye contact with Marina through the rear-view mirror. "I proposed to your mum," he said, much too casually for a statement of that gravity, Marina thought.

"We're getting married at the end of this year," Bobbie said excitedly, twisting in her seat so she could reach back and present her left hand to her daughter.

"Finally!" Marina smiled; the engagement ring was beautiful, and looked very nice on her mum.

Suddenly, she was struck with a thought that she hadn't really thought about before. Of course she knew her mum and papa weren't married, and she wasn't naive—she knew that having an almost-teenager with someone you were in a relationship with but not married to was unusual; none of her friends' parents were like that. It didn't bother her; it never had. But now she had to wonder: why were they getting married now? Why hadn't they gotten married years and years ago? Either before they had her, or even after she was a few years old…but why wait eleven—twelve, she reminded herself; she had turned twelve in December—years? As she congratulated her parents on their engagement, Marina tried to find a way to phrase her question without sounding rude or unsupportive. She was just curious, really; she didn't mean any offense.

After a couple minutes, Marina settled on just being blunt, like Annie and Quincy. "Why are you getting married?" she asked.

There was a beat of silence, in which Marina briefly was afraid that she shouldn't have asked at all, until her mum and papa exchanged a rather significant-seeming look. "Well, because we love each other very much," her mum answered carefully, "and we wanted to get married."

"You're already basically married," Marina said. "And you loved each other already, years ago, right?" Oops. That was probably less than polite.

Her mum sucked in a smooth breath. "We just…haven't had the opportunity until recently, dear." Marina still wasn't sure that made sense, but then her mum continued. "You know when you were very little, Papa still lived in France, and then just a few years ago—well, you remember."

Marina nodded. Okay, now that she thought about it, maybe they really didn't have the opportunity until recently…and she didn't want to ask about why they hadn't gotten married before she was born. Her mum didn't like to talk about anything that had happened before she was, well, her mum, unless it was recounting stories of Hogwarts. Maybe she could ask her papa. He seemed like he would more readily offer her information than her mum would.

That first week of summer was mostly spent outside with Quincy, relishing in their freedom. Sitting on her curb at the corner between their houses, eating ice cream, she brought up the whole engagement thing. This was the most curious thing Marina had encountered, and she wanted to understand. More than that, Marina also realized she knew almost nothing about her mum's family or her papa's family.

"Yeah, my parents told me yours got engaged after we got home from the station," Quincy said, trying to lick up all the drips of blue cotton candy ice cream running down the sides of his cone before they caused a disaster. Marina got ready with a napkin. "It is sort of weird, isn't it? Your parents getting engaged after they'd already definitely been together for twelve years? Or more, I suppose." The drips reached his hand, and Quincy started licking the mess off his skin. "How long have your parents been together, anyway?"

Marina scrunched her nose in disgust, shoving a napkin in her friend's face. "I don't actually know. I've never thought about the whole not-being-married thing before now, and I've never asked." She sighed. "I have been meaning to ask Papa. He'd probably tell me sooner than my mum would."

"That's a good idea," Quincy said, which made Marina feel a bit better about her plan to get some answers.

Their conversation soon turned to other topics more characteristic of two kids out of school for the summer, like Quidditch. Gideon's older brother Fabian was on the Gryffindor team, and Gideon apparently told Quincy about second years having the opportunity to try out.

"And you really want to fly up so high in the air like that?" Marina questioned. She'd been to the school matches; it could be a brutal sport. "What if you get really hurt?"

"That's the fun of it though, see," Quincy said, grinning. "The danger, the action, the suspense! High flying adrenaline rushes, Mina! And the glory, oh, the glory!" He pretended to faint from the supposed glory of it all, resulting in Marina almost spitting out her ice cream as she laughed.

And just like that, her parents' curious backstory was forgotten, pushed to the back of Marina's mind by the more pressing matters of being a twelve-year-old on school holiday.

The rest of summer was a whirlwind. Her mum turned into a bit of a raging wedding planning machine that couldn't make up its mind yet. When she was home, Bobbie was going through magazine after magazine, looking at dresses, flowers, center pieces, and so much more. Marina had no idea that so much went into planning a wedding. To avoid being called into the middle of it all, Marina spent a lot of time with Quincy, either biking around their neighborhood or meeting their friends at the Leaky Cauldron. Annie couldn't meet them very often, as her parents still didn't like the idea of their daughter going out and about alone in London, never mind a whole magical side of London they were completely unfamiliar with. Marina did go with Quincy to meet up with Gideon more often, though, and she found she quite liked him. During the school year she didn't have much of an opportunity to get to know this new friend of her friend beyond acquaintanceship, but by the end of summer she felt comfortable calling Gideon her friend.

When the school owl brought her supply list for second year, one of the first things she did was send an owl to Annie to try and organize a date where they could go shopping together. About an hour later, Quincy arrived at her house's back door, panting, as if he'd just run all the way from his house. Marina let him in, holding a finger to her mouth to tell him to be quiet; her mum was in a catering zone and disturbing her might end badly. The friends raced up the stairs to Marina's room where they could talk freely. Maia, who had been sleeping on Marina's bed, raised slow-blinking eyes at the intruders to her peace, but ultimately went back to sleep.

"Gideon just sent me an owl ten minutes ago," Quincy said at last, the words tumbling out of his mouth a little brokenly as he was still in the process of catching his breath. With comically exaggerated breaths, he bent double and put his hands on his knees. "Merlin, I'm out of shape!"

"See, you'll never play Quidditch if you can't even catch your breath," Marina laughed. "What did Gideon say?"

"He asked if we wanted to go school shopping together, of course. I just spent the last ten minutes convincing my mum it was a good idea to let me go with the Prewetts." Quincy paused. "I don't suppose your mum and dad would let you come? Without one of them, I mean."

"Well, I just asked Annie about going school shopping together. I don't know how well they'd take to knowing Annie would be coming with me and you and Gideon and his brother and…didn't his sister graduate last year?"

"Molly? Yeah, Gideon said Molly would be taking all of us."

"Quincy, I don't know if even my parents would let me go without any adults," Marina said doubtfully. "I'd like to go, and it sounds like fun, but I just don't know if I'd be allowed, and I know Annie most definitely wouldn't be allowed…"

Although Marina knew Quincy was rather smart, he was still a boy. Boys in general, of course, just didn't have the good sense that girls did, and this was why Marina tried very hard not to roll her eyes when Quincy said, "Why? Molly's an adult, and she's totally responsible."

In the end, Marina's papa was perfectly fine with the idea, but her mum wasn't too happy with it. "I will not let my child gallivant around Diagon Alley with some teenager I've never met," she said firmly, and that was that. She did, however, wholeheartedly embrace the idea of Annie joining Marina in school shopping.

—

The car ride to King's Cross on the first of September marked the end of Marina's summer. Here she was, about to start second year. With Maia clutched to her chest and her trunk dragging along behind her, Marina wished her parents goodbye and boarded the Hogwarts Express. Quincy followed at her heel, rambling on about Gideon joining the usual compartment trio this year because apparently Gideon himself had sent a panicked letter to Quincy two days prior about how Fabian refused to share a compartment with his little brother anymore now that Molly wasn't around to force him to do it. It wasn't so big of a deal. Marina was happy to have Gideon in their compartment, if they could find a free compartment, that is.

It turned out Marina and Quincy didn't need to find a free compartment; Annie had found one already, and was sitting quietly, staring out the window at the large crowd of parents and students on the platform. Quincy only had the presence of mind to tell her a quick and stuttered hello and abandon his trunk in the compartment before rushing off to find Gideon. More slowly and calmly, Marina levitated her own trunk onto the rack and then sat down next to Annie. Maia wandered onto her friend's lap, seeking the attention of this person she hadn't seen in months. Since entering the compartment, Annie hadn't thrown either Marina or Quincy her signature bright grin, and she didn't make an abrupt comment about Quincy. This was unusual, and Marina had a feeling something was off.

"Is everything alright?" she asked carefully. "You look much less cheery than usual."

Annie sighed, stroking Maia, whose loud purring brought a bit of her smile back to her face. "It's just my parents. All summer I kept feeling like they were ignoring me a little and paying more attention to my little siblings than they used to. I thought it was just because I'm older now than I was and they trusted me to be more independent, but then today my mum didn't want to come to the train station with my dad and I, and it seemed like my dad only brought me because he absolutely had to." With wide eyes, she looked up at Marina. "I'm worried they're upset I'm a witch," she whispered.

That had Marina worried, too. This was the first time she remembered Annie hesitating to say anything, even if the only hesitation she showed was whispering. It certainly wasn't like Annie to be afraid to say anything, nor was it at all like Annie to be worried about anything. If it was really bothering Annie this much, then it must be something. But Marina should try and make Annie feel better, right? Was this maybe one case where honesty actually was a bad idea? At least straight honesty, anyway.

After a moment wrestling with how to reply, Marina put her arm around Annie's shoulders and said, "I don't know how anyone could be upset by you, Annie Brennan. Maybe you're right, and they're just letting you be more independent. You said they didn't entirely ignore you, right?" At Annie's nod, Marina continued. "Then I wouldn't worry about a thing. If your parents really start pushing you away and making you feel unwelcome, then we can worry. I'm sure everything is just fine."

Just as Marina finished speaking, Quincy reappeared with Gideon in tow, identical mischievous grins on both of their faces. The pair of them almost slid past the compartment with how fast they were rushing. Annie perked up when she saw them, her usual smile slipping right back onto her face. Marina, though, was suspicious: Quincy only ever got that look when he did something worthy of disapproval. Gideon, gangly-limbed as he was, clambered over Quincy's abandoned trunk, hauling his own after him. Quincy rushed to scramble into the compartment and shut the sliding door behind him. The boys struggle with their trunks before they collapsed together on the seats, still grinning ear-to-ear.

Marina assumed what she thought to be a stern posture, arms crossed and foot tapping and everything, and fixed them both with a sharp eye. "What did you do?" she demanded.

"Just ran into a pair of Slytherins and had a bit of fun," Quincy said quickly. Then he suddenly froze, eyes wide, and watched as Marina's mouth dipped into a frown. Her glare had him looking remorseful within seconds, staring down at his shoes.

"You know Marina's mum's a Slytherin," Annie commented when Gideon started looking between the two old friends in confusion.

Just then the train lurched forward, beginning its journey to the school. Quick on the uptake, Gideon let his smile melt away. "The Gryffindor-Slytherin rivalry bothers you, then? I'm sorry, Marina."

She sniffed. "It isn't me you should apologize to; it's the Slytherins," Marina said smartly.

"To be fair," Quincy muttered, "they were harassing first years."

"You can't just bully a bully," Marina protested. "That's not how it works—"

"Well, did the first years get away?" Annie interrupted.

Gideon straightened a bit in his seat. "They did," he said proudly. "We made sure of it. We only distracted the Slytherins a bit. All harmless stuff so the first years could escape."

Quincy sat up too, his dark eyebrows quirked up earnestly. "I swear, it was only small stuff. Just turning their robes colors and dropping a dungbomb right in front of them. Harmless stuff!"

"Then I think it's fine. Marina, you can't keep them from getting into a little trouble. It's like training a dog; unless you're around to tell them 'no' every time it happens, then they'll never learn," Annie said, in all apparent seriousness, though Marina could see laughter in her eyes.

Even if Annie was joking about the dog thing, Marina could see her point. Those boys were bound to get into trouble no matter what she said or did. That was a byproduct of being a Gryffindor, she supposed. Reluctantly, Marina nodded and rolled her eyes when Quincy and Gideon cheered at her silent concession.

The remainder of the train ride was a happy one, and when they all arrived at the Hogsmeade station, Marina watched wistfully as Hagrid escorted the first years away, all their eyes bright and wide with wonder and anticipation. Nothing would ever beat the first time she laid eyes on the castle, gliding across the lake in magic boats.

"They look so small," Annie commented. "I know we're only a year older than them, but don't they look so young?"

Marina nodded. "Come on, I heard we get to ride in horseless carriages," she said, excited for the new experience, tugging Annie by the hand to catch up to the boys. Maia protested with a little mew at this new pace of travel, cradled in Marina's arm as she was.

The carriages were truly impressive, just as the boats were last year. Up at the castle, Annie and Marina said a quick goodnight to Gideon and Quincy before hurrying over to the Ravenclaw table to wait for the first years. The girls met Lark and Artemis there, and the four of them chatted about how their summers went and what they hoped they'd do in class and otherwise over the course of the year until Professor McGonagall marched in with the first years behind her. As the professor began to run through the list, Marina didn't pay very much attention, that is, until the old Sorting Hat shouted "Gryffindor!" and a tense hush fell across the gathered students.

Confused, Marina looked from Lark to Artemis to the poor first year boy with shaggy black hair. Annie appeared just as confused as Marina did. The boy hopped off the stood, head raised defiantly despite the flush of embarrassment that Marina could see burning on his ears. "What just happened?" Marina asked as McGonagall carried on with the Sorting and the students carried on talking, albeit more hesitantly now.

"That was Sirius Black, and he's, well, a Black," Artemis supplied. "He was just sorted into Gryffindor."

Lark jumped in when it was clear that that was all Artemis had to say about it. "What Temmie means is," she said, using the nickname she'd taken up using, though Marina knew Artemis herself sort of hated it, "Sirius Black's family are all Slytherins. The Blacks are a super old pureblood family, worse about maintaining their bloodline than the Malfoys even. For Sirius to be sorted into Gryffindor is…well, it goes against everything his family is," she finished dramatically.

"My family, the Rowles, are one of the Sacred Twenty-Eight too," Artemis added. "Most of my relatives are Slytherins. A few of us are Ravenclaws. There were a couple Hufflepuffs that I know of, but they keep quiet about it usually."

Annie's eyebrows were drawn together in confusion and maybe even a little worry, the second time today Marina had seen her so far from her usual happy-go-lucky mood. "What are the Sacred Twenty-Eight?" she asked.

"Old, old pureblood families," Artemis answered shortly.

Rolling her eyes at Artemis's unhelpfulness, again, Lark elaborated for Annie and Marina, who was just as confused as her muggleborn friend. "Way back, like, ages and ages ago, some stuffy pureblood compiled a list of the families he deemed the most pure in blood, meaning no intermingling with muggles or muggleborns. It was all because of prejudice against muggles, you know, and even especially against muggleborns. It used to be that the very common belief was that muggleborns didn't deserve to have magic, or they weren't as powerful as purebloods." As if remembering that Annie was a muggleborn suddenly, Lark glanced at said witch, and her tone turned from cavalier to saddened. "It's a terrible thing to think," she assured Annie, who had turned quite pale. "It's a much less popular opinion now than it was."

Artemis cut in, being in one of these families and having insider knowledge. "There are families listed under the Sacred Twenty-Eight who are most certainly not truly purebloods, like my family. Most of them, actually, aren't really pureblooded, but most muggles, muggleborns, or halfbloods that marry into the family are either kept quiet or the blood traitors are disowned and disinherited. And some families hate being part of the Twenty-Eight, like the Weasleys and the Potters. Their entire families are called blood traitors for disagreeing with the old pureblood ideas. The Blacks, though, are extremely dedicated to keeping their blood pure. I can't remember who specifically, but I know they have cousins marry each other for the sake of keeping the blood in the family sometimes." She shook her head, eyes downcast. "Truthfully, I think it's disgusting, treating muggleborns the way purebloods do. I'm glad my family only pretends to care."

This was the most Marina had heard Artemis say in one go, aside from the time she went on a surprise rant about how much she couldn't stand the Gryffindor Quidditch team after they made a massive deal about beating the Slytherin team last year. This was also the most upsetting things she had heard Artemis say. Marina resolved to find out more about this disturbing part of her world that she'd never been privy to before. Unbidden, the question of her mum and papa's families popped into the forefront of her mind for the first time since early summer.

Rather than dwell on the unpleasantness of it all, Marina pushed these thoughts away in time to catch the last half of Dumbledore's welcome speech. After eating, the girls climbed the stairs up to Ravenclaw Tower, ready to turn in early and get a good night's sleep before classes began bright an early tomorrow morning.


	5. Chapter 5

AN: Wow look at that, I'm updating with long chapters and seeming to do it pretty quickly and regularly. I'm sort of scared, you know, because in the past I've been known to abandon stories because I just...lose interest. HOPEFULLY that doesn't happen here, because I actually do have a vision for where I want all this to go in the end, I swear! We'll get there eventually. I'm sorry we seem to be dawdling around in the exposition.

Before I let you start reading, I'd like to give a shoutout to my two friends honorary-marauder-1, who I beta for and she's amazing and she's got a couple cute Jily stories, and 911weasleytwins, who has also written some cute Jily stuff. These ladies offer me tons of support and I'm ever so grateful for them both!

Annie was a morning person. She was the only true morning person of the four Ravenclaw girls, and as such, she woke up first. All through last year, the girls had developed a morning routine to deal with school mornings as best they could, and Annie always woke up first. Artemis was a light sleeper, and usually woke up when Annie did. Annie left to go shower, Artemis sat in bed blinking in the early dawn light. When Annie got back, she woke up Marina, who hated mornings but showered in the morning anyway. Morning showers helped her wake up, something she desperately needed, especially last year when Ravenclaws had History of Magic as their first class a few times a week.

"Double Potions this morning, Mina," Annie said, shaking her shoulder gently. Unlike Lark and Artemis's unfortunate nickname, Annie had taken to calling Marina "Mina" after she heard her mum and Quincy using it all summer, and Marina was pretty okay with it. "You have to be awake for Potions or you might explode your hair off, and you said you want to grow it out."

That early in the morning (really, it was like six in the morning; Annie was just insane), all Marina could muster was a drawn-out and incoherent grumble muffled by her pillow, but she rolled out of bed anyway. She was, in fact, trying to grow her hair out; as a kid, her mum kept it cut short and close to her head, as her very frizz-prone, wiry, very tightly-curled hair was difficult for both Marina and her mum, who had almost the exact opposite of her daughter's hair, to deal with. Now, that she was older, though, she wanted to grow it out. This, of course, involved avoiding as many cauldron explosions as possible, so Marina grumpily trudged out of the dormitory to take a shower.

Very quickly last year, the girls learned to not, under any circumstances, touch Lark until the very last possible moment before they headed down for breakfast. Lark was most definitely the least morning-compatible person out of the four of them, and one time last year she'd shot a surprisingly nasty stinging spell at Annie for trying to wake her up ten minutes earlier than usual. After that, the three of them never deviated from the routine ever again. This year was no different, and after Marina, Annie, and Artemis were fully dressed with book bags packed for a morning of double potions, only then did Artemis lose at rock-paper-scissors and approach the snoring Lark. Marina and Annie waited just outside the door until Artemis scooted out of the room.

Hogwarts breakfasts began at six thirty, an hour and a half before the first class period began at eight. Very few people showed up in the Great Hall before seven, and the Ravenclaw second year girls—second years now!—were no different. The girls sat down on the long benches at their long house tables at precisely 7:13. Lark did not show up to breakfast until 7:48, when she grabbed a blueberry muffin off the table and forewent sitting down at all to walk with Annie, Artemis, and Marina down to the dungeons.

Even though she hated mornings, even though Lark worried her with her last-minute-breakfasts, and even though they were heading to Potions first thing in the morning, Marina had to smile. She'd missed Hogwarts.

Unfortunately, that lovely feeling of returning to Hogwarts after summer did not last much more than a week. Second year, it seemed, was the year professors gave up on holding back their assignments. By the end of September, they'd written at least one essay a week on top of two star charts for Astronomy. Lark dutifully kept up the Homework List, though this year she scrapped the one-list organization of last year and started seven separate lists, one for each subject, and was able to post them to the wall with the sticking charm they'd finally learned. Marina, who was better at Charms than Lark was, recast the sticking charm on the Homework Lists after Lark's sticking charm wore off a week in.

On the first Saturday of October, the house Quidditch teams held tryouts. Quincy was absolutely determined to try out with Gideon, and begged Marina to come to Gryffindor tryouts to support him. They were in the library when Quincy brought it up, studying for the upcoming Transfiguration quiz. Marina knew she would probably do terribly and enlisted Quincy and Gideon's help, seeing as Transfig seemed to be so easy for them both, and Annie tagged along for moral support. Ravenclaw and Gryffindor second years had Herbology together on Mondays and Wednesdays as their final class of the day, and directly after they were dismissed from Greenhouse Six by Professor Sprout, the four of them headed straight for the library.

Two hours later, Marina had slumped onto the table, forehead pillowed on Artemis's immaculate Transfiguration notes. "This is hopeless," she mumbled into the table. "I'm completely hopeless." After a very long sigh of anguish, she turned her head so her cheek was against the parchment and stared absently at the bookshelves they were surrounded by. "I'm going to fail this quiz." Annie patted Marina's shoulder, and Marina looked up at her. "McGonagall likes you; maybe you can convince her to leave off the practical half."

"Well, at least you have the theory down perfectly," Gideon said, trying to be encouraging.

"I don't get it," Quincy said, almost more frustrated than Marina was. "How can you have a perfect understanding of why it works and how it's supposed to work but you can't just make it work?"

Annie hummed. "I think it's time for a distraction. You're about to break down in tears, I can tell. How about something to take your mind off it for a bit, Mina?" That prompted Marina to pick herself up off the table, rubbing her skin in case any ink had printed itself on her face, as Annie kicked Quincy under the table. "Right, Quincy?"

"Oh—uh—well—" he stuttered. Marina rolled her eyes; he still couldn't quite handle direct conversation with Annie. "Tryouts!" Quincy blurted at last. "Quidditch tryouts are this weekend."

Gideon latched onto the subject change quite smoothly, given its abrupt beginning. "Quin and I are trying out for Gryffindor, and it would be really cool of you to come," he said. Then he knocked Quincy's shoulder with his own. "Poor Quincy needs at least one person cheering him on, you know," he teased, grinning.

Annie laughed as Quincy shoved the redhead back. "That sounds like fun, don't you think?" she asked Marina.

Smiling, she nodded, but was more interested in the way Quincy's face flushed red at Annie's laughter. She'd ask him about it later, Marina determined, fairly certain now that she had just realized something worthy of a little teasing.

Gideon checked the watch he wore on his wrist—a birthday present he'd gotten over summer, he'd said—and began sorting through the five sets of Transfiguration notes on the table. "Look," he said, "it's only half an hour until dinner. We have Transfiguration Thursday, and you have it Friday, so how about tomorrow after classes we can meet here again and Quincy and I can tell you the sort of stuff you'll need to know for it," he suggested. "Sound good?"

Marina nodded and took a deep breath. "Thank you for your help, you guys," she said, looking between the two Gryffindor boys across the table from her.

"Of course, it's our solemn duty as your friends," Quincy said with a grin as Gideon nodded in agreement.

Armed with the unwavering support of her friends and the helpful tutoring of the boys, Marina went into the Transfiguration quiz with little confidence. She knew for sure that she'd done very well on the written half, at least, and then she surprised herself by getting part of the practical perfect. At least she knew she didn't fail it, and that's what she repeated to herself over and over in her head when she stood to turn in the written section. At least she didn't have to place her parchment on the pile with McGonagall watching—the professor was busy overseeing the practical of Alfred Smith, one of the Ravenclaw boys she didn't enjoy talking to.

Marina spent her free period by the Black Lake with Annie, people-watching. Three Hufflepuff first years were sitting some ways away, giggling to themselves and watching two older Hufflepuff boys. On of them was Roger Meadowes, though, so Marina couldn't blame them. At lunch, Marina had just sat down with Annie, across from Lark and Artemis, as usual, when Quincy attacked, grabbing her shoulders and shaking her around. She almost had a heart attack but recovered quickly enough when she heard her best friend laughing behind her.

"How was the quiz?" he asked loudly, reaching around her to steal a chip off her plate. "McGonagall wasn't too hard on you, I hope!"

Marina swatted his hand away. "It was alright. I got part of the practical, at least. Thanks again for that."

"I didn't know you had difficulties with Transfiguration, Marina," Alfred cut in. "I'd be glad to tutor you. I'm pretty good at it myself."

Lark suddenly crinkled her nose like she'd smelled a particularly nasty smell. "No one needs your help, Smith," she said.

"Yeah, we have it covered, anyway," Quincy added.

Alfred scoffed. "Oh, please. There's no better tutor for a Ravenclaw than a fellow Ravenclaw." Then his eyes narrowed, looking up at Quincy, who was still standing behind Marina. "You're not suggesting that you, a Gryffindor, are better at Transfiguration than a Ravenclaw?"

She felt Quincy stiffen, his hands gripping Marina's shoulders a little harder than was really comfortable. Although, really, she couldn't blame Quincy; Alfred Smith was obnoxious.

"Transfiguration is taught by a Gryffindor, Alfred," Annie countered, "and I am very sure that McGonagall is better at Transfiguration than you are."

With a sour look, Alfred turned away, back to the other Ravenclaw boys in their year. Quincy high-fived a giggling and triumphant Annie.

On Saturday morning, Annie woke Marina with a bright smile, reminding her they'd agreed to watch Quincy and Gideon at the Gryffindor Quidditch tryouts. Gryffindor held tryouts at the Quidditch Pitch right after breakfast, so while Artemis went back to sleep and they avoided touching so much as the curtains drawn around Lark's bed, Annie dressed Marina in a cozy sweater and jeans before they headed down for breakfast. When they entered the Great Hall, Marina and Annie noticed Alfred Smith sitting at the Ravenclaw table. The girls shared reluctant looks, but were saved from having to sit with the troll of a boy by Quincy, who had apparently noticed their arrival and came bouncing up to them.

"Good morning! Come on, there's space for you at our table," he said, and pulled Marina over to the table of rather rowdy Gryffindors (even in the morning they were loud!) as Annie followed, amusement plain on her face.

"Is this even allowed?" Marina asked, though her curiosity was winning over her anxiety about following whatever rules might exist.

"I don't see why not," Quincy shrugged, and plopped down on the bench where he must've been eating before he got up to fetch them. "Budge over, Frank—here, sit down!"

So the girls sat, heartily welcomed by the Gryffindor second years. Emmeline Vance quickly swept Annie into a conversation about an Herbology assignment, and Kingsley Shacklebolt politely asked Marina what she thought of the Transfiguration quiz yesterday. Then Gideon bumped his broom, which was resting against the table, and caused it to fall against Caroline Brown's arm so that she smeared her spoonful of oatmeal against her nose and cheek instead of getting to eat it. She flew into a rage, smacking Gideon, who was laughing hysterically as the oatmeal slowly slid down Caroline's face. Marina decided she liked sitting with the Gryffindors.

"Hey, aren't you two Ravenclaws?" piped a voice, and Marina looked across and down the table at a boy, a first year if she remembered right, with black hair sticking up every-which-way and glasses perched crookedly on his nose. "What are you doing over here?" he asked. It wasn't malicious or judgmental, just an honest question.

"We'd rather sit here than have to sit alone with Alfred Smith," Annie answered cheerfully. "Did you forget to comb your hair today? It's quite messy."

The Gryffindors around them chuckled, but no one laughed louder than the boy across from the first year. Curious, Marina leaned forward to see around Quincy and Frank Longottom. It was Sirius Black, the unlikely Gryffindor, that had guffawed so loudly. "She's got you there, James," Sirius said, grinning as this poor James kid tried to flatten down his hair with a sheepish smile. A boy on the far side of Sirius seemed to very obviously nudge Sirius and shot a rather obvious look to James. Sirius leaned to see down the table. "I'm Sirius Black, by the way." Marina almost said "we know" but stopped herself when she realized how that might've sounded.

"James Potter," James said absently, still trying to fix his hair, now using a knife to try and see his reflection. He was only succeeding in making his hair even messier, if that was possible.

"Sorry about them," called the boy who did the nudging and looking from his spot down the table. "I'm Remus Lupin, and that's Peter Pettigrew," he added, jerking his head to indicate the rather pudgy boy next to James, who was apparently too shy to introduce himself.

"Nice to meet you all," Annie said, grinning one of her happiest grins. "I'm Annie Brennan." Then she kicked Marina under the table.

Puling herself out of her head, Marina smiled down the table. "Marina Stewart-Lautrec," she introduced. Oh, introductions, introductions. She hated introductions. So boring, so much time to get through it all.

Sirius snorted. "Two last names, eh?"

Oh. That wasn't a question she'd been expecting. "Yes," she said. "Two last names. It's sort of a mouthful, but I think it rolls off the tongue nicely." Marina figured it probably wasn't a good idea to bring up her parents just then.

There was one difference between Ravenclaws and Gryffindors right there: where a Ravenclaw probably would've pushed for more information, Sirius simply shrugged and went back to whatever previous conversation he'd been having with the other first year boys.

When the captain of the Gryffindor team rose and grabbed his broom with the rest of last year's Quidditch players, Gideon and Quincy scrambled to finish their breakfast and follow them out. That meant Marina and Annie had to scramble and finish their breakfasts, too, by extension, along with Frank and Caroline and Becky Davies, another Gryffindor in their year, as they wanted to come watch tryouts too. Then, of course, James Potter looked up at the commotion and exclaimed, "You're all headed to tryouts, aren't you? We'll come too, that sounds like such a cool time!" and he gathered up his posse of first year boys, and then one of the first year girls perked her head up and followed us out. Marina never caught her name if she had one.

As a pack of scarlet and gold and noise with a bit of blue in there somewhere, they all migrated out to the pitch. Marina rubbed her hands to warm them in the cool October morning, hoping the sun would come out and cast some warmth down on the grounds. Marina didn't know a whole lot about Quidditch, and Annie knew even less, but from the reactions of the Gryffindors around them (aside from Becky, who had only come to watch some of the older Gryffindor boys fly around on their brooms and show off, according to her), she and Annie were able to piece together an understanding of what was good and what was bad. From how it seemed to be going, Quincy and Gideon were nowhere near as good as the older students. As supportive friends, Marina and Annie cheered though they were wincing along with their classmates.

"Jackson and Prewett sure don't give up, do they?" James commented. He'd sat himself and his group close around the other Gryffindors, remarkably without any qualms from either year. "I mean, look at—oh! Jackson almost slipped off his broom again."

Frank squinted up at poor Quincy, who was indeed hanging by both his hands and one knee. "Nah, he's alright. There he goes, right back up." Quincy had indeed pulled himself back up.

"They do have impressive tenacity, you're right," Annie said.

When all was said and done, Marina and Annie went with the rest of the Gryffindors to meet the tried-out students on the ground of the pitch to hear the results. They got there just in time to hear the Gryffindor captain say, "Better luck next year, boys. Keep practicing; I see some real promise in both of you!" and step away with a friendly clap on Gideon's shoulder.

Though he smelled gross from being a boy in general and also going through tryouts, Marina offered Quincy a consolation hug. "Sorry about not making your team," she said to both the boys. "I know you were both excited for this all summer."

"Yeah, well we'll just have to practice more, just like Killian said," Gideon sighed, scuffing his feet in the dirt as they walked back to the castle.

Marina didn't know what was up with all this referring-to-people-by-their-last-names business, but she did know that Gideon was right. Surely there was a way for aspiring Quidditch players to practice playing without butting into the real teams' practices. She'd nudge Quincy towards looking into it once he got over this disappointment first.

—

In late October, Marina was preoccupied with staring out the tall Charms classroom windows on a blustery Monday afternoon, watching the wind buffet the far off trees in the Forbidden Forest and lost in her thoughts. In about two months, she'd go home for their Christmas holiday, and her mum and papa would be getting married. She hadn't thought much about it until just earlier that week when it occurred to her that the wedding was actually going to happen. Now she was internally kicking herself for not asking about their backstory over summer like she'd intended. Papa's mother would be coming, but Marina had only met her grandmaman maybe once or twice when she was still very small, so maybe she wouldn't be a good person to ask. Some of Mum's friends from school would be there, she thought, but Marina, again, wasn't very keen on talking to people she didn't know. For reasons unknown, Mum hadn't wanted to invite any of her family. That, Marina thought, was very strange. Maybe she'd been disowned somehow? Marina couldn't make heads or tails of it.

Annie stuck her elbow in Marina's side, bringing her back to reality in time to hear Flitwick's end-of-class spiel about homework and whatnot. "…excellent wandwork, today, class, simply excellent!" Flitwick was saying. "I'm very glad you all seem to be achieving proficient results with your engorgement charms. For tomorrow, I want to see records of your out-of-class studying, whether that be notes over pages in the text or charts of your experiment with the spell…" Marina tuned back out as students started to pack up their bags. Flitwick and his "studying records" were a common thing this year, and he must've talked to Slughorn about it because for a week the Potions professor had tried to assign something similar that resulted in more than a few students in the Hospital Wing with unsupervised brewing-related injuries.

She snapped back to attention when Annie stepped hard on her foot. Flitwick was looking at her expectantly over his little spectacles.

"Oh, um, sorry?" Marina got out, straightening in her seat and trying to pretend she hadn't been ignoring her professor.

"Could I ask you something very quickly before you head to your next class?" Flitwick asked.

Marina felt herself go pale. Had he finally had enough of her lack of attention in class? "Is everything alright, Professor?" she asked.

Flitwick nodded and smiled kindly. "Oh yes, yes, of course!" He said nothing else as the class filed out of the room, having been dismissed at some point when Marina had zoned out.

Annie rubbed Marina's shoulder. "I'll meet you outside the door," she said. "I'm sure you're in no kind of trouble, otherwise Professor Flitwick wouldn't be smiling so much." And then she, too, headed out of the classroom, jogging to catch up with Artemis and Lark.

Nothing was wrong; Annie was right. And Flitwick said so himself anyway. Marina packed up her notes and textbook before approaching the podium Flitwick taught from. "What is it, sir?"

"How is your schedule outside of classes, Miss Stewart-Lautrec?" he asked unexpectedly.

Marina furrowed her brow. "I'm sorry?"

Flitwick shrugged. "Do you have much free time? Too bogged down by assignments and studying, perhaps? Anything?"

Now she was just confused. "I, um, have free time enough, Professor…why?"

"How would you feel about tutoring?"

Marina's furrowed eyebrows shot up her forehead. Tutoring? As in, officially? Well, she supposed she wasn't half bad at helping her friends with their Charms troubles. And she had gotten Quincy an O on his Charms exam last year, hadn't she? "I'm only a second year; wouldn't an older student—"

"Oh, no, no, you see," Flitwick cut in, shaking his head a little wildly. Marina was worried his glasses might fall off. "The student I'd like you to tutor is a first year, so all the better, yes? A closer peer and all of that to put him at ease. He's a bit of a timid soul, see, and you're so quick and talented with Charms that I'm sure there'd be no better student to help him."

"Alright, well…who is this boy I'm to tutor then?"

Flitwick's face lit up in what she would almost call relief. "Oh, you'll do it? Wonderful! It's young Peter Pettigrew, in Gryffindor. Is there a day and time this week you would prefer to meet him?"

Well, it wasn't like Marina had much of a life outside of her classes…she had no pressing obligations to her friends. "Today during the free period after classes is alright for me if it's alright with him," she said, intoning it more as a question than a statement.

The little professor nodded happily. "Yes, yes, he did mention he would be happy to meet any time after class this week. I'll send a note down to his next class promptly. Ah—I suppose the library?"

Marina nodded. "That's alright with me, sure."

"Three o'clock in the library, then—thank you ever so much Marina!"

With a bobbing nod and a smile, Marina began to back out of the classroom. "No trouble at all, Professor!" she said, and hurried out the door. Tutoring one of those Gryffindor first year boys…oh dear. Those four had begun to build a bit of a reputation for mischief-makers, always acting like perfect little idiots at meals when Quincy dragged her over to the Gryffindor table. On occasion Quincy and Gideon would invite themselves to the Ravenclaw table to get away from the scene of a future crime. And she had just agreed to tutor one of them in Charms.

She had Herbology to go before meeting Peter in the library, and when Marina had cleared her workspace of spilled dragon fertilizer she dashed up to Ravenclaw, hurrying past Lark, Annie, and Artemis in her haste to collect old notes from Charms lessons of last year. When Marina told the girls the whole story in Herbology, Artemis happily offered her notes—since they were the designated notes to use should your own notes not suffice—that she'd saved from first year. Marina made it past the Eagle and up the stairs and through her trunk and Artemis's trunk and back down the stairs and through the castle to the library in record time.

Peter slinked into the library a few minutes after three, but Marina could hardly blame him for that. The library was sort of out of the way of every other classroom in the castle, and he probably didn't run for his life to get here. Marina waved at him, and when Peter saw her seemed to slump where he stood, dragging his feet across the carpet to the table she'd claimed earlier. With a sullen face, he carefully set his bag on the table and collapsed into a chair across from Marina.

"Hello," she said. "I know we've met, so I'll spare us the pain of an introduction." Thank Merlin. Ugh. Peter nodded and dropped his chin on his folded arms on the table. "So, Charms, eh?" she asked.

Peter nodded again, though it looked more like he was just digging his chin further into his arm. "Flitwick said I needed proper tutoring."

"Well, I've never officially tutored anyone before, but I've helped my friends with their homework loads. That's sort of the same thing, isn't it?" All she was trying to do was make some sort of conversation. This could get very boring very quickly, and the last thing Marina wanted was to get all distant on Peter. "Where should we start, Peter?"

He shrugged. How very helpful. "The beginning, I guess."

Marina nodded and slid Peter's Charms textbook across the table to herself, opening to the first lesson. The textbook's spine cracked when she opened it, and out of curiosity, Marina shut it again before opening it roughly to where she though Flitwick had taught up to about this time last year. It offered her the sweet sound of a fresh spine crack. Usually this was a sound Marina enjoyed because it meant a new book to start devouring, but in this scenario it was probably a problem. In this case, the popping glue meant Peter had likely never even opened his textbook yet.

"Why aren't you reading the textbook?" she asked, head cocked. Gently, Marina set the textbook back down on the table, watching as Peter's face paled and his eyes widened. "The spine's not been cracked yet, which means you've never opened it. Why?"

Peter scrambled back up straight and grabbed for the Charms book. "Er—uh—well—…" he stuttered. And then he dropped his chin to his chest shyly and mumbled something quietly.

Marina furrowed her brow. "Sorry? I didn't catch that."

After drawing a big breath in, Peter said, "James and Sirius don't ever read their textbooks and they're doing fine in Charms."

So Peter didn't do his homework because his friends didn't do their homework. Marina sat back in her seat and regarded the boy across from her thoughtfully. That actually made a lot of sense, having seen those four boys together even as little as she had. The dynamic and pecking order in their clique was clear, even to a relative outsider like her: James was the ringleader, with Sirius as his close second-in-command, and those two certainly could be very overwhelming with their in-your-face-personalities; Remus was a quiet backbone of common sense and rationality; Peter was very much a follower. It was somewhat a mystery why he was so completely integrated in their group, even if it was sort of mean to think of, because he was a little short, chubby, pasty, clumsy, nervous—overall just not at the same sort of level that the other three reigned at. Or, Marina reasoned, he was around because the world needed some sort of counterweight to the other three, especially Sirius and James. Regardless of why, Peter hung around the much more naturally talented James and Sirius and Remus, and though Remus was the sort of boy who was committed to doing his homework, James and Sirius were not. They could sort of get away with skipping homework; Marina remembered first year was mostly just reading work. They were talented enough to get by without it. Still, that wasn't a method that could possibly work for Peter.

"You know, you shouldn't try to emulate others so much," Marina said. "That's it, isn't it? You're copying James and Sirius because they're cool?"

Peter bristled as his face reddened. "No," he said, his tone dripping nervous defensiveness. "I'm not copying them. And what does 'emulate' mean?"

Straightening her posture just a little with the pride of knowing a big word, she quickly answered, "It means copying, but it just sounds so much better." Marina blew out a sigh and waved her hand dismissively. "It doesn't matter though. Peter, you should try to do the reading. Flitwick structures his class so that if you don't read then you miss really important information he won't cover in class. Didn't he tell you all?"

Peter flushed a deeper red and shrugged. "I just don't think reading will help with actually doing it," he muttered.

Marina thought for a moment. It was entirely possible that he really just didn't see the value of reading the book because, again, his prominent role models were James and Sirius, and Remus probably could get by without reading carefully either.

"Alright," she nodded, "that's understandable. You spend a lot of time with people that don't need to read the textbook, right?" Without waiting for confirmation (even though Peter nodded after a moment), she continued. "So look. I did the reading. And, see, I read really, really carefully," Marina said, sliding her old Charms book towards Peter, flipping it open and leafing through the pages for him, showing her folded corners and inked-in margin notes. "I really hate taking reading notes on separate parchment," she confessed quietly, with a very serious expression, "so I make all my notes straight in the textbook, since I bought it and it's mine and I can. I swear, reading the textbook is helpful. I even read the bits Flitwick didn't actually assign, the parts we just went over in class. See, he has his classes read about the background of the spell before he asks them to perform it straight in class because it frees up time to answer questions that may have come up in the reading, or he can offer better instruction to more students, and all because he doesn't have to spend half his classes lecturing over material we can just read about. It's actually a rather genius class structure," Marina gushed.

In total silence, Peter stared down at the marked pages of Marina's textbook while she talked, brow creased in thought. When she was clearly finished and not on the verge of saying anything more, he looked up shyly. "I suppose you're right," he said quietly. "But what about if reading doesn't actually help at all and I'm still rubbish?"

"I think," Marina said slowly, as it was still a very half-baked idea, "knowing why and how the spells work will help at least a little. That's why I'm so good at Charms—I have to know why something works before I can make it work." Then she caught Peter's apprehensive and doubtful look, and backtracked. "But, I mean, maybe you're right. In that case, that's what I'm here for, yeah?" And she smiled, hopefully putting as much cheer behind it as Annie could.

Peter looked away and nodded. "Okay. So I'll try reading the textbook—"

"Maybe try starting back at the beginning," Marina interrupted. "It's not too late to try and catch up from the beginning again if you work at it."

"Okay. I'll go back to the first reading we were supposed to do—Remus will know what it was, so I'll ask him—and…" Here he paused and seemed to be deliberating very hard about something. "And can we meet here again next week?"

Marina beamed. "Yes, that's a fantastic idea! Then you can tell me your progress."

Their meeting didn't last very much longer than that, and Marina packed up all the notes and books and stuff she'd brought, not thinking more about Peter and his Charms problems. She was fairly sure that she'd figured out his trouble, and she was fairly sure she'd come up with a good solution to start with. If only he actually did the reading, all of his need for a tutor might go out the window, and for both their sakes, Marina would be very glad about that. It wasn't that she didn't like this tutoring business, she decided; she just wished she couldn't tutored someone who had real difficulty. That would've been infinitely more fun than telling someone off for not reading the assigned textbook passages.

By the time next Monday rolled around, Marina had noticed that Peter was avoiding her like the plague, and it wasn't even like she saw enough of the Gryffindor first years that it would be a big deal, but somehow this seemed very obvious. It was probably obvious because he was very bad at it. A lot of sudden stops and spinning on his heels in hallways followed by James calling after him in befuddlement, or on Saturday when Quincy had pulled Marina to eat lunch at the Gryffindor table and Peter had spent the whole time very obviously trying not to look in Marina's direction. Nevertheless, he showed up after classes on Monday in the library, and he plopped himself down on a chair across the table from Marina, and resolutely looked down at his lap.

"Well?" she prompted.

Nothing. Peter only started swinging his feet.

"Have you tried reading the textbook?" she asked, impatient to see if she was right.

He sucked in a quick breath. "I didn't read it," he said in a rush.

Marina threw herself back in her chair, disappointed and a little frustrated. "Well, why not?"

He only shrugged. Now, Marina wished she could help him, she really could, but how was she supposed to help someone who wouldn't try to help themselves?

"You've had time to read, haven't you? No other subjects bothering you and taking up your free time?" she tried.

Peter shrugged. "No," he said. "I just didn't get around to it."

Her eyebrows tilted upward in concern. Was he being bullied into not doing his work by James and Sirius? "Your friends aren't making fun of you for it, are they? I'm sure they wouldn't tease you. Remus does his work—"

"That's just it!" Peter burst out. He looked up finally and stared Marina down with his pale blue eyes. "Remus always does his work, and James and Sirius just laugh it off. It doesn't bother Remus that James and Sirius tease him about doing his homework, but I don't want them to laugh at me, too."

Well then. She swallowed, taken aback. This was suddenly a much bigger problem than just poor Peter Pettigrew not doing his homework. "Do you want me to talk to them for you about it? I'm older, so they might listen."

By his reaction (widened eyes, gasp, shaking head), she guessed that was the very wrong thing to suggest. "No, don't! I—I can stand up to them, I promise!"

So she backed off, raising her arms in surrender. "I won't, fine. I'll stay out of it. Just prove to me you can do it, okay?"

Peter hastily agreed, and as if to prove it right then and there, he whipped out his textbook and flipped the cover open to begin reading right away. Marina figured that she'd settle for this. She was bothered by the fact that she had to accidentally threaten him into doing his work, but on the other hand, that was why she was in Ravenclaw and he wasn't, right? Marina knew that she was motivated to do her schoolwork all by herself because it was interesting, and she knew now that Peter was very not motivated by himself.

That's how their tutoring sessions went from then on. Every Monday afternoon, under Marina's watchful eye, Peter read in the textbook, asking a timid question every so often. He wasn't stupid, Marina realized quickly. When he put in the effort, Peter caught on to it all very quickly. It probably helped that he was still working through material Flitwick had already covered in class and hadn't come across anything too new yet, but still. This was progress. Marina could see in his face, as he became more comfortable with being around her and with reading the textbook, that he was also realizing for himself that he wasn't stupid. For her part, Marina was very relieved. She'd suggested, once he caught up to his current class material, that instead of meeting every week, they meet on the first Monday of every month, a suggestion Peter had gladly snatched up.

"I don't know how you did it," Flitwick said to her privately in late November, "but you've managed to turn Mr. Pettigrew totally around in this class. Still not top of the class, but he's in a much better place, that's for sure!"

Marina was pretty convinced, by the time December began and the Forbidden Forest had finished shedding almost all its leaves, that she'd finish this year's first term excellently. Aside from Transfiguration, of course, she was doing well in just about every class—and even Transfiguration was getting better with more and more help from Quincy and Gideon. She'd managed to change a first year's life (hopefully) by convincing him to read his textbooks. Her mum and papa were getting married soon. And even though she found herself growing away from Lark and Artemis a little, her friendships with Annie and Gideon were only growing closer.

Yes, she thought to herself, cuddling up with Maia in bed to fend off the ever-increasing winter chill, second year was going pretty well for her so far.


	6. Chapter 6

**AN: WHOOPS it's been about a monthish since I posted, hasn't it been? I'm sorry! Really! I've had to read three books for school and they were kind of monopolizing my time and my brain and I just didn't have the thought space to work on this until literally a couple days ago and then I got back into the swing of writing. So this chapter picks up just before Christmas holiday, and does not quite cover the entire Christmas holiday, though I don't think there's much more holiday action I really want to write about next chapter. I left this on what I feel like is a pretty big cliffhanger, but idk, my perception of tension buildup is a bit jacked because I already know what's supposed to happen, so feel free to let me know if I actually pulled it off or not.**

 **Also, shoutout to my friend honorary-marauder-1 for getting the music from Chicago epically stuck in my head!**

A couple days before they were to leave for Christmas holiday, Marina noticed Annie was worried. It wasn't very obvious, but she picked up on little irregularities: she didn't comment on Gideon's sloppily-tied tie, she forgot to poke Marina out of her head before Professor Raleigh caught her daydreaming in Defense, and one evening in the common room she watched Annie's eyes scan the same page four times, and it wasn't even a textbook, which would have made some sense. Knowing Annie was preoccupied with something—and it was a bad something because when Annie got quiet her eyebrows knitted together and she looked like she was sucking part of her cheek in between her teeth while she frowned—was, in turn, worrying Marina. She didn't like seeing her friend upset. So, when they were packing the afternoon before they were to leave for the Express, while Artemis and Lark were conveniently out of the dormitory, Marina asked her about it, carefully making sure her tone was gentle.

"Is there something bothering you, Annie?"

Annie sighed, and paired another two socks. "I'm worried about how my parents are going to be when I get home. I still can't get over that feeling from the end of summer I had, like they don't like my being a witch," she confessed, her voice much heavier than it usually was, though she spoke with the same confidence she usually had.

Even though Annie hadn't hesitated now that Marina had asked, she'd kept her fears to herself. Marina thought back to the beginning of the year, remembering now how Annie had been quiet and forlorn on the train. The goal right now was to comfort Annie, though, not discuss the possible legitimacy of her concerns.

"It's alright. They're your parents; how could they not accept you? You've done nothing to be upset or ashamed or guilty about," Marina stated, punctuating her assertion by dropping Maia's cat treats into her trunk. "I'll write to you, okay?" Annie's parents refused to buy her an owl, so she always had to wait on Marina or Quincy to write to her first, which meant Marina would definitely have to write to Annie so that Annie would be able to tell Marina if something was wrong.

The very next morning, Annie started up the usual routine, making sure Marina and Artemis were awake so they could do all their last-minute packing of their toiletries or what-have-you. The Hogwarts Express would be leaving at 11:00, so at least they had a few more hours in the morning than they usually had. At about 7:10 or 7:15, the three girls had a very quiet discussion on whether or not they should wake Lark like usual or let her sleep another hour or two. Annie was for waking her up because breakfast would not be served in the Great Hall after 8:30, but Marina was for letting her sleep, and Artemis could see both sides of the debate. They compromised by returning to wake her after they finished breakfast, and escaped the den of the slumbering beast before they accidentally roused her too early.

Unfortunately, the trio took too long to decide, because who should be lurking on the landing between the common room and the exit but Alfred Smith and another of the boys in their year, Irving Chatterley. "Good morning, Marina, Artemis, Annie," Alfred called when the girls came to a stop at the bottom of the stairs. "Heading to breakfast?"

"Don't want to miss the gingerbread scones," Artemis replied. Annie nudged Marina to follow Artemis towards the door.

"We'll join you, then! Irving and I were waiting for the others, but they seem to be running late this morning." Alfred sauntered over, reaching the door before Artemis and opening it with a dramatic flourish. Marina rolled her eyes.

"You know, actually, I'll wait for Evan and Xavier, Alf," Irving said, hanging back by the door to the common room. He casually poked through the stuff on the Ravenclaw lost-and-found table. Marina wondered if anyone had lost anything interesting recently. "We did say we'd meet them up here, after all."

"See you at in the Great Hall then," Alfred said, and again gestured for the girls to step out of Ravenclaw Tower.

It was terrible, the walk through the castle. Alfred was smart, and he knew it, and he liked to show off and talk about himself a lot, which he did that morning. Apparently, Annie wasn't the only morning person in Ravenclaw, because how else could Alfred be so bloody chipper and prepared to flaunt his endless odd facts before breakfast? Really, Alfred was hard to stand during the day, but in the morning when Marina was still not really truly fully awake, he was horrifying. She'd never known a more pompous braggart, and they had Slughorn teaching them potions for two hours twice a week. When they came to the Grand Staircase and Marina spotted Peter Pettigrew and his friends a flight down from them, she had to restrain herself from laughing in relief.

"Oh, look, there's Peter, and I've just remembered I need to ask him about that thing and I need Annie and Artemis to come with me," she said quickly, interrupting Alfred's explanation of the history of Italian protective spell tradition and its similarities to the British tradition.

Annie caught on immediately and with a short "That was an extremely boring lecture, Alfred" she flew down the steps, Marina following after and grabbing Artemis's hand to pull her along too. The girls pulled up short just behind the boys, not being quiet at all, causing the four younger Gryffindors to turn and give them very confused looks.

"We're escaping the human equivalent of History of Magic but more full of himself," Annie declared, "and it would be lovely if you could pretend to be very interested in talking to us."

James and Sirius shared a quick look before James threw his arms out and donned a wide grin. "Merlin's beard, we haven't spoken in ages!" he said loudly.

"I don't believe we've met," Sirius said, bowing to Artemis. "We simply don't see you Ravenclaws enough!"

"And Peter, you see the most of Marina here out of all four of us, I can't believe you haven't told us she's growing her hair out!" James exclaimed, throwing his arm around Peter's shoulders and looking slightly offended, because sure, why not, of course he, an elven-year-old boy, would notice her hair had gotten marginally longer since they met almost two months ago.

Marina saw Remus sigh and shake his head fondly, glance back up towards Alfred, and then tug the back of James's shirt to start walking again down the stairs. James and Sirius carried on with their theatrics almost the entire way to the Great Hall, at which point Marina made a split-second decision to sit at the Gryffindor table for breakfast this morning. Like usual, the Gryffindors raised no eyebrows, made room for the newcomers at the table. Annie made introductions to the present students they knew for Artemis, who had never joined Marina or Annie at the Gryffindor table as she'd never had cause to before. This morning, though, they sat between the second and first years, as a result of being brought to the table by the first year boys.

"Thank you for that," Marina said. Alfred had just walked into the Great Hall, perplexedly looking at the second year-less Ravenclaw table before sitting down by himself.

"No trouble at all! That Smith bloke's a pain to be stuck around," James answered, buttering a slice of toast.

The general conversation broke up and turned to various topics, most of them Christmas-related, and Marina was glad to see that Artemis looked to be enjoying herself as much as Artemis ever did enjoy herself, despite her previous rage against their Quidditch team. Her thoughts started to run away, then, and she tuned out the chatter around her. Being with Artemis and Sirius at the same time brought up her thoughts on her family past again, and she wondered if she'd ever know. The wedding was in just over a week; maybe someone would make a speech and tell stories about her parents as kids, or an old relative would start off on a tangent about lineage and ancestors and whatnot. Wait—ancestors and lineage. Her mum was a Slytherin, and she knew her family were all stuffy purebloods, but were they prejudiced purebloods? Was that why her mum didn't keep in contact with any of her family anymore? Was it because she had a child with her father—someone who wasn't a pureblood? Marina knew her papa's mother was a muggle and his father was a wizard, and she sort of felt like she'd heard that her grandpapa was actually muggleborn, or something like that. Maybe her mum was disowned for being a blood traitor.

Annie's foot connected with the side of Marina's shin, and she blinked away her thoughts. "Hm, sorry?"

"I said you're a girl, right?" James repeated, a hopeful look on his face.

Marina blinked again. "Well…last time I checked, yes. Why?"

James ran a hand through his hair, causing it to stick up in more directions than before. "Would you want someone to do a big romantic gesture for you?" he asked.

"Aren't you eleven? Bit young for big romantic gestures, isn't it?" she asked.

"That's what I told him," Annie commented.

"I'm twelve and I want nothing to do with it," Sirius piped.

"Told you, James," Remus said.

"What's this?" Artemis asked.

"I fancy that girl, Lily Evans," James stated, hooking his thumb in the direction of a cute girl with long red hair a bit farther down the table.

Artemis leaned forward to see down the table. "It'll never happen," she said with finality. "She's a redhead."

Peter furrowed his brow, confused. "What does that have to do with anything?"

With a solemn shake of her head, Artemis answered, "He's too good for her."

—

"Happy birthday, darling!" Bobbie caught her daughter up in a hug as soon as Marina reached her on the platform. Maia made an unhappy noise at being squished. "I'm sorry your papa and I didn't send anything for you through the post, but we thought it would be better to wait until you came home to give you your present. And anyway, you still have to pick it out for yourself."

When she arrived home, her papa had a similar greeting for her, sweeping her up off the ground and spinning around in the entryway of the house, nearly knocking Marina's feet into the umbrella stand. Her birthday had been almost a week ago, on 12 December, and she was now officially thirteen years old. A proper teenager, if you will. That evening her papa cooked fondue Savoyarde, a favorite meal of Marina's, and after dinner he brought out a beautiful birthday cake, thirteen candles burning above three layers of chocolately goodness. Her mum promised to take her to Flourish and Blott's soon, because she owed her five books as a birthday gift. Marina thought it was a lovely birthday celebration, and definitely worth waiting for.

After that first day of holiday, Marina mainly cozied up in the sitting room to soak up the Christmas decorations, the warmth of the fire, and stay away from getting swept up in the wedding plans. Bobbie was, at the moment, on the phone with a muggle florist, negotiating...something. It was moments like these when Marina thought her mother was at her best: directing, multitasking, strategizing, orchestrating. Bobbie was a force to be reckoned with, certainly, and it was amazing how she could handle all of it without much stress. Marina also had some homework she needed to do, and the sitting room was a good place to do it.

By the third day of holiday, Marina hadn't left the house or spoken to any of her friends, which was difficult to deal with when she saw her friends' faces every single day. She wrote up a letter to Annie, just the general stuff, like how was she and what her family's plans for Christmas were and was she enjoying not going to classes and all of that. The parchment scroll she forced to fold into a proper shape for a letter and sealed the string in the wax before popping into the kitchen to find the family owl.

When Marina entered the kitchen, her mum had a dress form stood on the table with a light pink, silky gown draped over it, and was staring intently at it with her arms crossed and her eyes narrowed. Quietly, so as not to break her mum's concentration, Marina tied the letter to their owl's foot and sent him off to Annie's. She figured now would maybe be a good time to go see if Quincy wanted to hang out, and took all of four steps towards the coat closet in the hall before her mum grabbed the sleeve of her sweater and pulled her back to the kitchen.

"Oh no no no, I need you for just a few minutes before you go away again," Bobbie stated, and turned back to the dress. "What do you think of this one?"

Marina considered the dress. It was certainly pretty, if a bit flouncy. It had a high neck and big bell sleeves and a hem that reached the floor—well, the table. "Um, I suppose it's pretty. Why? What about it?"

Bobbie twirled the dress around to start unbuttoning the long line of tiny gold buttons down the back. "You're a bit young to be a bridesmaid, but I wouldn't want it any other way, you see. I think this would be your bridesmaid dress if you want." Marina watched her mum slip the dress off the form and shake it straight again. "Here, dear, why don't you try it on?"

So instead of going over to Quincy's house, Marina modeled the dress for her mum, who decided that, yes, this dress did look very good on her daughter, and, yes, she did definitely want Marina as her bridesmaid because she was too old to be a flower girl anyway.

Annie's reply came back the next day, giving a report of nothing the matter at her home. She said that so far, her family maybe was a little distant, but Annie assumed that was because they hadn't seen each other for months. While that didn't quite sit right with Marina, because after months and months her parents weren't distant at all, but she figured she shouldn't try to pry and accidentally upset Annie in the process. Additionally, Marina got to see Quincy for a bit a few days before Christmas, and they talked about their assignments and Quidditch and James Potter's fancying Lily Evans. Apparently James was very much not ashamed of it and tried to get the poor girl to notice him every chance he could.

"You're kidding—in the middle of class?"

"That's what I heard, anyway, yeah."

"So you're saying that not only can James Potter fold a perfect origami swan, he also tried to send his love note to Lily right under Raleigh's nose, knowing that Raleigh had a cold that week?"

"Yes, that's what I'm saying. I'm actually sort of impressed—"

"Lily did something like rip the note up, didn't she?"

"Oh, of course. She's worse about wanting to learn than you Ravenclaws are, even. She only acknowledged it after Potter landed the thing right in front of her, and then she crumpled his beautiful origami work and went right back to taking notes. That's what Marlene told me, anyhow."

They were sitting in Quincy's sitting room, eating the screw-up Christmas sugar cookies his mum rejected. Marina watched a shower of crumbs fall onto the couch from Quincy's burnt star-shaped treat and remembered her thought from months ago.

"Speaking of fancying girls, do you fancy Annie?" she asked.

The crumb shower became a crumb geyser as Quincy suddenly coughed on his mouthful of biscuit, spewing crumbs as far as the coffee table. He flushed red, enough to be obvious against his dark skin, and Marina would have laughed if not for the very real possibility that she may have just killed her friend by causing him to choke. Thankfully, Quincy got ahold of himself and swallowed properly, took a drink of water from his glass, set it back down next to its coaster (but not on the coaster because he's just an idiot boy who knows nothing about good manners or preserving the varnish on lovely wooden coffee tables), and spent about an eternity opening and closing his mouth like a fish.

At last, he managed to stammer, "No, I—I don't—she's not—I'm not—…"

Right, sure. Marina rolled her eyes. Merlin help her because boys were completely useless and she happened to be best friends with one. Still, Quincy clearly was not ready to admit what was so painfully obvious, so Marina supposed she'd let the matter drop and maybe they could revisit this another time.

Christmas came and went, but it was a bit overshadowed by the impending wedding. Blessedly, all the preparations now seemed to be taken care of, aside from a rehearsal dinner for the wedding party to practice the entire ceremony, and then they had to visit both the wedding and the reception venues one last time the day before the wedding so they could plan out exactly how they'd decorate the following morning before the late-afternoon wedding. Marina watched her mum have a final fitting for her dress, and to Marina's shock, Bobbie began crying, standing in her wedding dress in front of the full-length mirror. She'd almost never seen her mum cry.

It was a beautiful ceremony, of course, all soft pink and gold and white, with pretty blue flowers everywhere, and wearing the bridesmaid dress wasn't so bad because it made her parents happy. Her papa cried, some of her mum's friends cried, and her grandpapa cried while her grandmaman fed him patterned handkerchief after patterned handkerchief (Bobbie herself did not even tear up—now the crying at her fitting made sense). But then Marina had to stand in a line with the rest of the wedding party and greet all the guests, and it was absolutely terrible because she had to introduce herself to everyone who came, and at first she only said "I'm Marina" because she wasn't sure what her last name was supposed to be now, but then some extended family someone-or-other who must've been well into his hundreds said "Who are you?" over and over until Marina finally said "I'm the bride and groom's daughter" and then he nodded and smiled and moved on down the line. So then she said "I'm Marina, the bride and groom's daughter," or just "I'm the daughter of the couple" or something like that and it was ridiculous, especially when some of them didn't even say their names back. Marina didn't even bother trying to remember all of their names, really. But it was all worth it because she'd never seen her parents quite so happy, and at least she could sit by Quincy at the reception. Still, no one said anything in any speeches about anything relating much to anyone's past, and Marina's burning curiosity was becoming unbearable. She'd break down and start being rude and asking questions soon if no one offered any answers to her unspoken questions, she knew.

The reception was in full swing, dancing, music, all that jazz, and it was late, and Marina was getting tired. She'd yawned twice already, both of which Quincy had caught. Then, out of the corner of her eye, she noticed the door crack open, and a woman slipped into the room, unnoticed by anyone, it seemed. The woman stood near the door, seemingly lost, and Marina couldn't shake the feeling that she looked familiar.

"Quin, you see that woman near the door?" she asked, bumping her friend with her shoulder to get his attention.

Quincy looked around, eyes narrowed. "No, I can't see the door at all." Marina tugged him over sideways so he could see from where she was sitting. "Oh, that woman with the curly blonde hair?"

"Yes. Does she look familiar to you?"

He was quiet a moment, apparently thinking. "Uh…no, I don't think I know her from anywhere…" He trailed off then, and Marina could hear some sort of a realization in his voice. Suddenly, Quincy sat upright again, faster than Marina had anticipated, and he hit her in the nose with his elbow. "Mina, doesn't—"

"Ow!" Her hands flew up to her nose, and she scowled at Quincy.

"Sorry, I'm sorry—but Mina, doesn't she sort of look like your mum? Like, a lot like your mum?"

Marina took a second look at the woman, who now seemed to be scanning the room for someone. Now that Quincy had pointed it out, she did look like a curlier-haired, rounder-faced, brown-eyed version of her mum. Before she'd even realized she'd done it, Marina stood up from her chair, sending it scraping on the floor behind her, not that anyone else could hear it. She told Quincy she'd be back, and then she weaved around chatting and dancing adults much taller than she was to get to this woman who just might be related to her mum.

"Excuse me," Marina said, coming to stand to the side of the woman, who she could see was now wearing a rather fine fur coat. "What's your name?"

"Bertie Minchum," the woman said, barely even glancing at Marina. "What's yours, sweetheart?"

"Marina Stewart-Lautrec, although that might change yet," Marina answered. "Um, are you looking for someone?"

Bertie Minchum snorted. "Your name might change yet, what's that supposed to mean?" And then she froze. And then she turned her attention fully to Marina. "Sorry, what did you say your last name was?"

"Stewart-Lautrec, except it might change considering my mum and papa just got married earlier today, you know." Marina was getting a little impatient. This Bertie obviously knew something, but what?

"How old are you, Marina?" Bertie bit her lip, eyes flicking upward for a fraction of a second. "Twelve? No, you'd be thirteen by now, wouldn't you be?"

"I just turned thirteen a couple weeks ago, yeah. Why? Are you related to my mum?"

"You're mum's Bobbie, isn't she?"

"Why?" Marina had to restrain herself form stamping her foot and settled for frowning.

"Sweetheart, your mum's my sister and I'm your aunt and I haven't spoken to her in about fourteen years, so if you know where she is right now—"

"Gigi?"

Marina looked past the woman who was apparently her aunt to see her mum, a hand at her chest, and Theo holding her free hand. Someone tapped Marina's shoulder, making her almost jump out of her skin, and she spun around, scowling at Quincy for scaring her. While her mum and aunt hugged and babbled incomplete phrases at each other, Marina whispered the whole exchange to Quincy, who stared at her with his jaw hanging in response.

"I guess you'll get some answers after all, Mina," he said once he collected his wits again.

"I guess I will."


	7. Chapter 7

**AN: This chapter, I believe, is not my finest work. I feel like it's short but I feel like it drags. (edit: this chapter is actually slightly longer than the last chapter, I had to check) There's a lot of explaining in the first section and not a whole lot of anything very interesting in the second section, but it's there for a reason I swear. So please enjoy despite it not being very entertaining. Or maybe it is. Who knows.**

 **Shoutout to 911weasleytwins for texting me "NEW CHAPTER YEET YEET YEET" and "IM SO HYPEF TO READ IT" as soon as my last chapter went up, what a sweetheart honestly, she also leaves the most supportive reviews and I am very grateful for her input. Also I literally just finished Parks & Rec the day I finished and uploaded this chapter and let me tell you I am very emotional about it. (Maybe that's why this isn't fantastic whoops) Also also you guys would not even believe how much extra stuff I have half-written for this story already and I haven't even finished planning out all of the main story. Whenever this ends, be prepared for sequels and prequels is all I'm gonna say lol**

"One package of licorice wands, two chocolate frogs, a box of Every Flavor Beans, and…what did you want, Mina?"

"Cauldron cake."

"And one cauldron cake please," Quincy finished.

The trolley witch smiled and began gathering the sweets. "That'll be three galleons, four sickles, dear," she said, handing the stack of packages to Quincy and taking four galleons from Gideon, who'd been standing by with the coins. Quincy began distributing the snacks as the trolley witch counted out a number of sickles. "And thirteen sickles is your change."

After they'd slid the compartment door shut again and everyone had gotten what they'd wanted, the attention turned back to Marina. Gideon let one of the licorice wands hang from the side of his mouth in preparation to sort out Bertie Bott's beans, and took the liberty to start the discussion. "So hold on—I'm sure I can't be the only one here who doesn't know all the backstory. I know you were curious about your parents, but what's all the fuss about it?"

"I never really questioned it until last summer when my mum and papa told be they finally got engaged, and then I realized they'd never told me very much at all. I knew a little about my papa's parents, because I've met them, but they live in France and grandpapa's sick often so we don't see each other often. I do know that my grandpapa's a wizard and my grandmama's a muggle. No idea about if my grandpapa's muggleborn, whatever," Marina began, lifting the cauldron cake out of its box.

"Why is this relevant, exactly? Blood status, I mean?" Gideon asked.

"Just hush, Gideon," Annie said. "She'll explain. She's very good at explaining but you have to be patient."

Marina rolled her eyes. "I do not take forever to explain something!"

"You do a bit," Quincy said, shrugging. "Just go on."

"Fine, I'll try to be more brief. Anyway, I knew my papa was basically a halfblood, he went to Beauxbatons, was an only child, all that. My mum didn't say much other than that her family were stuffy purebloods and she didn't speak to them anymore. There was some drama, obviously, but I didn't question it because my mum hated talking about her family and never did for more than a sentence or two at a time."

"The Stewarts aren't on the Sacred Twenty-Eight, though, are they?" Annie asked.

"They're not," Gideon answered.

"I'll get to that," Marina said. She took a bite of her cauldron cake and tried to hold it out of Maia's reach. "So I started wondering, when they told me they were engaged, why they hadn't gotten married long before. Like, before they had me. I kept meaning to ask but I always ended up distracted by someone else." Here she shot Quincy a dirty, but jokingly so, look. He had the decency to smile sheepishly back. "Then, you know, Sirius Black was sorted into Gryffindor, and Artemis and Lark explained all about pureblood prejudice insanity, because even though both my parents are magical, I've never heard of that before. I suppose I was sheltered from it or something. And then that got me thinking about my mum's family, who were purebloods. So then I thought maybe my mum, who I know isn't prejudiced against muggleborns at all, was kicked out of her family for maybe having me with my papa, who isn't a pureblood."

"Well that's a good theory, I'd say," Gideon commented, trying to discourage Maia, who had abandoned Marina as a food source, from batting at his licorice. She meowed at him in response.

"I was sort of hoping that maybe some of my mum's old friends might shed some light on it at my parents' wedding, but she only invited her friends from work, I guess. All the family there was from my papa's side, and they'd never known my mum before she met Papa. I thought the whole investigation would turn out to be a flop and I'd have to just ask Papa what he knew about it, but then my mum's sister showed up at the reception all of a sudden, uninvited as far as I know."

"And this is where I no longer know anything about what happened because you refused to tell me anything," Quincy announced, scowling at Marina.

Marina flapped her hand at him and rolled her eyes. "Oh hush, I only wanted to have to explain once. So my aunt, who introduced herself as Bertie but my mum called her Gigi and I'm not entirely sure what I'm supposed to call her so I just avoided using her name the entire time she was there, and my mum and papa all sat down and just talked and talked, catching up and whatever, for hours. Apparently my mum hasn't seen her sister since about a year before I was born. And I got impatient after a while and asked what had even happened that made them fall out of contact. You know me. But hours-long story short, my maternal grandparents were not pureblood fanatics, per se, but they were very conservative on the issue of blood. So, casual pureblood supremacists, I suppose. That's why we're not on the Sacred Twenty-Eight. Even back when the list was written, my family weren't truly pureblooded; they throw their lot in with the purebloods more because they're in power than because they strongly believe in it, although they do have some prejudice, my mum said. But my grandparents didn't raise my mum and aunt to be like that, really, or at leas that's the vibe I got from them. My mum was disowned—"

Quincy's jaw dropped. "Wait, your mum was fully disowned? I thought she and her family just dropped contact!"

Marina shook her head. "Oh no, she was disowned alright. Had she married my papa then she probably wouldn't have been disowned and my grandparents would probably only have dropped all contact and my aunt would've still talked to my mum over the years. But no, she was disowned. Basically my mum met my papa on Christmas holiday in France in her seventh year, they fell in love, wrote letters when school started again, all that, and my aunt encouraged my mum in all this. And then my mum met up with my papa again over Easter holiday, and I guess by graduation my mum knew she was pregnant with me, and that's why she was disowned. From there my mum lived with friends for a while before she saved up enough to get her own flat, and the rest is history." Marina shrugged. "I probably would've figured out the gist of it earlier if I had bothered to check the math on how old my mum was when I was born, but oh well."

"So you were the reason your mum was disowned?" Quincy whistled, long and low. "I would feel terrible if I knew I'd wrecked my mum's relationship with her family."

"Shut it, Quin. 'S not Mina's fault," Gideon said, elbowing Quincy in the side. "That's insensitive, you dolt."

"No, it's fine. I guess you could look at it that way, but I don't feel guilty. It was my parents' choice to do what they did when I'm sure they knew the consequences. If there's one thing my mum has never been, it's reckless, and my papa would never have pressured her to do something she didn't want to do. That just isn't who they are. I'm not responsible for what they did, and I'm actually thankful, because if I hadn't been born when I was, I wouldn't be who I am now, and I probably wouldn't be friends with any of you. And anyway, my aunt feels terrible about supporting my mum and then suddenly cutting off contact when my grandparents told her to, so now my mum and aunt are at rebuilding their relationship, which is nice. Oh, did I tell you my aunt's married to Harold Minchum?"

Annie cocked her head, unopened chocolate frog box still in her lap. "Who's Harold Minchum?"

Marina shrugged. "Not sure, but my aunt says he's got a pretty powerful position in the Ministry. Her fabulous clothes would agree, I suppose."

Quincy and Gideon laughed, and Annie gave them a confused look, the sort of face you'd see on a puppy, before it dawned on her. "Oh, so your aunt married for money? That's kind of sad, isn't it?"

The rest of the train ride consisted of taste testing Every Flavor Beans while Gideon watched and laughed at their disgusted faces (he'd sorted them and was extremely familiar with each flavor). After a particularly nasty vomit bean, Annie broke down and had to open her chocolate frog to cleanse her palate, only the enchanted sweet hopped away before she could catch it. Their bean adventure had to be set aside for a moment to prevent Maia from catching and eating the frog, as chocolate should never be consumed by cats. Marina finally grabbed her out from under the bench seats just as she was about to scramble out and jump up at the window, where Annie's frog had come to rest. That would have been disastrous in more ways than one, and it was lucky the chase stopped there before any cats or students got hurt. Annie elected to sit the rest of the bean game out to pay extra careful attention to her chocolate frog. She'd gotten Eugenia Jenks, the current Minister for Magic, on her card.

When the train finally pulled into Hogsmeade Station, Annie looked about ready to fall asleep, but Gideon and Quincy were positively bouncing. Literally. They were nearly skipping as the group walked. Marina gave the boys an odd look as they made their way to the mysterious horseless carriages. "What's got you both so excited to be back?" she asked.

"Well, Quidditch, that's what!" Quincy answered. "The first two games of the year are over, all the teams have played once," he continued, voice animated and dramatic. "Now the real competition begins."

Gideon picked up the explanation, feeding off of Quincy's enthusiasm—or was Quincy feeding off of Gideon's? "Each team has had their chance to showcase their strengths and hide their weaknesses, and by Merlin's pants, they're going to be studying and strategizing their arses off! The next game's in February, Ravenclaw versus Slytherin, you know. The Gryffindors will all be rooting for Ravenclaw, of course, but most importantly, Hufflepuff and Gryffindor will watch the plays like hawks to prepare for their next games. Especially my brother! Fabian's one of the Gryffindor Beaters."

"It's the most exciting thing you can imagine!" Quincy exclaimed.

Marina simply shook her head, smiled, and adjusted Maia in her arms and Annie's head on her shoulder.

—

Just like last year, the professors started talking about exams the first day back from holiday. And, just like last year, the students tended to ignore the exam talk. It was still January, after all. Exams wouldn't happen until May—five whole months from now! Lark pointed out, one day, when Quincy was eating lunch with the Ravenclaws and poked a bit of harmless fun at the studying schedule she was putting together, that first of all, her schedule didn't include any studying until late March, and second of all, that from the day they started classes again, they actually had about four and a half months, considering the time taken for the last bit of Christmas holiday and the week off for Easter holiday. Still, no student was really in the habit of studying for exams starting in January, even the Ravenclaws. Truth be told, Ravenclaws were known to be rather bad at studying before the last minute. Other things were much more interesting than studying.

Marina too, elected to ignore exams altogether until the middle of April at the earliest, and even then she probably would ignore them still longer until the beginning of May. This plan was going pretty well: Marina attended all her classes, and even stayed awake through Tuesday evening Astronomy, without a hitch, tuning out the professors and their lectures on studying early rather than later and tuning back in when Annie made her listen to whatever homework was being assigned. She took decently diligent notes during Professor McGonagall's Transfiguration lectures (because she did not teach with the same philosophy Flitwick did), she did her best to pay attention to Professor Sprout while wearing gigantic earmuffs to repot mandrakes, and she even managed to keep her eye-rolling to a minimum whenever Professor Slughorn got stuck in one of his reveries. She paid attention except for when she didn't need to, just like always, except she paid a little closer attention than she felt she really wanted to so she made up for the post-Christmas slacking she fell victim to last year.

It actually seemed to be paying off, the extra attention-paying, especially in Transfiguration. She still wasn't great at it, but she finally started to get a better grasp on the practical aspect. In mid-February, Marina was able to nearly completely transfigure her rabbit into a pair of slippers. Despite their residual ears and tails and toes, McGonagall actually complimented her while she was making her rounds on practical day.

"Excellent improvement, Miss Stewart-Lautrec," the severe-looking woman said as she passed Marina's desk. Marina beamed for a straight hour after that.

The only problem with ignoring exams was that she couldn't. Nope. This was Professor Flitwick's fault, of course. Only, he didn't ask her to stay after class this time around, like he had in October. No, on one rather lovely day in early March, just a couple days before the Gryffindor Hufflepuff match that Quincy and Gideon were so nervous about that if Marina didn't know better she would think they'd bet a significant sum of money on the game, the tiny man actually walked down the length of the Ravenclaw table to speak to Marina during dinner.

"Miss Stewart-Lautrec," he said, as a mode of getting her attention and also in greeting.

She turned around awkwardly on the bench, sandwiched as she was between Annie and a third year. "Professor," she said. "Hello."

"Have you been having a fine dinner?"

"Um, yes, I have." This was highly unusual and Marina wasn't sure what she was supposed to be expecting here.

Flitwick shifted on his feet. Clearly, he was not cut out for smalltalk. She could relate. "How have you been finding your tutoring sessions with Mr. Pettigrew? Agreeable, I hope?"

Marina nodded and wished she could return to eating her steak.

"Very good, very good. Would you consider taking on another student? Another first year, you see. Nice girl, but she doesn't, ah, test well, you know. You had so much success with Mr. Pettigrew and his reading I wondered if you might try your hand with Miss Maxwell." Flitwick took off his glasses to polish them, letting Marina think without his expectant eyes trained on her.

She certainly had time to tutor another student, especially because she and Peter only met once a month—hm, although with exams coming up soon, she should probably ask they go back to once a week. Peter, Marina thought, probably would benefit from studying sooner rather than later for his exams. But could she help another student? Peter's problem was relatively easy to fix. She wasn't sure how well she could teach someone else exam-taking skills, especially when testing skills came sort of naturally to Marina herself. It would be a challenge though, a challenge which could prove interesting… So Marina mentally shrugged. She might as well see if she could help this poor first year girl.

"Alright, why not? I'll see what I can do for her."

Flitwick looked up, smiling behind his mustache. "Oh, wonderful! I'll let Professor Sprout know right away. Pomona and I had such hope you'd be willing to give it a go with Miss Maxwell. Is there a day of the week you would prefer?"

She saw Peter Mondays, so any other day would be alright, Marina figured. Then a thought occurred to her: maybe Peter and this Maxwell girl could benefit from studying together? Hm, no, she should actually meet the girl first and see what she had to work with before she went and put her in a potentially uncomfortable position with someone else. Knowing her penchant for absent-mindedness, though, perhaps Marina should go with Thursday. Monday and Thursday, her Herbology days. Finish Herbology, head to tutoring in the library. Yes, that would be smart.

"Thursday, after classes end?"

"3:00 on Thursday in the library, then. Perfect," Flitwick nodded. "Have a good evening, Marina. Oh, and thank you again!"

Once he'd left, Marina quickly explained all of what had just happened to her dorm mates, at least two of whom were curious. She spent the rest of the meal already churning over how she could impart some exam-taking wisdom on the first year probably-Hufflepuff.

It turned out Miss Maxwell was, in fact, a Hufflepuff, and also her name was Rachel. Marina met Rachel outside the library doors and didn't even realize it. They arrived at the same time, a couple minutes before three, and Marina didn't know that the Hufflepuff girl she had held the door open for was her tutoree until Marina sat down at a table and the girl walked over after standing amidst the other partially-populated tables for a few moments.

"Do you know where Marina Stewart-Lowtrec is?" the girl asked.

So this was Miss Maxwell, Marina thought. "It's Lautrec," she corrected. "That's me. You must be the first year I'm supposed to help out?" Peter seemed to shy away from the word "tutor," so Marina thought she might try a different phrase.

The girl nodded, making her honey curls bounce. "Yes, I'm Rachel. Nice to meet you." She smiled shyly and sat down across from Marina. An unconventional introduction. Alright. This was going well so far.

"So Rachel, I don't know if you want to get right to it or if you want to get to know each other a little bit first or what, but I have nothing prepared for you today. I tried going in with a plan last time and I had to start from scratch anyway. What do you want to talk about?" Marina assumed this would probably be a good thing to do.

Rachel blanched, eyes wide. "Oh, um…I'm—I'm not sure, actually. I thought you would tell me what to do," she said.

Well then. Okay, alright, Marina could work with this. "Well, how about we just spend a little time getting to know each other, and then we can talk about your schoolwork, okay?" Rachel nodded. "Great. So you're a first year and you're a Hufflepuff. What's your favorite class?"

Rachel's eyebrows pulled up in the center. "Um, I don't know. Hm. I don't know if I have a favorite class. They're all rather difficult, aren't they? But I suppose I like Herbology a lot. I like that Professor Sprout teaches it. And…and, well, I like Astronomy, with all the stargazing, and I like making up the star charts." Rachel finished with a small smile, and Marina tried to sigh very inconspicuously. This could get boring. She was going to be boring.

"Personally," Marina said, "I like Potions a lot, and I like Charms a lot. Mostly because I'm good at Charms and Potions, and I think they're useful. Hm, and I do have fun in Defense, but I'm not the best at it. Oh, and I think Transfig is really interesting, but I'm terrible at it. I can barely transfigure to save my life." She laughed a little, trying to break up the awkwardness she felt. "Um, is there anything you want to know about me?"

The Hufflepuff thought for a tad too long, in Marina's opinion, but did eventually come up with a question: "What's your favorite book?" she asked. "I like The Secret Garden. It's a muggle book, so maybe you haven't heard of it, but I really love it."

As it happened, yes, she had heard of the book, but when she'd tried to read it a couple years ago she gave up. It just wasn't very exciting, and she got bored. But she did have a favorite book that Rachel might know too, since it was also a muggle book. "I would have to say my favorite book isn't just one book, it's a bunch of books. The Sherlock Holmes stories. I like that there are words I don't know and I like that they always make sense in the end. My mum used to read them to me when I was growing up, and I still read them sometimes."

"Oh, you like muggle books? I didn't know if you would know any," Rachel said, her eyes all bright and happy. "It seems like there's a lot of people who've never heard of any muggle books at all, but some people know loads. Have you noticed? I sometimes wonder why some people here don't know about any muggle books."

Marina was shocked. Did this girl not know about muggleborns and purebloods and halfbloods? Maybe she could explain this later; it was very off-topic right now, and Rachel didn't seem like she expected a real answer anyway. Hufflepuffs. Always wondering but rarely looking for the answer, or at least in Marina's experience. They tended not to ask many questions in class, but she sometimes heard them talking about actually very good questions amongst themselves later. Anyway.

"Well, yes, I do know some muggle books. But hey, what about classes again? Are there any you need help with?" Marina asked, trying to steer the conversation back to a productive topic.

Rachel's eyebrows pulled up again. "Is this a getting-to-know-you question or a question about the, um, tutoring?" she asked, looking a little scared.

"Both," Marina said quickly. If Rachel was more comfortable with chatting, they could just keep chatting…but about tutoring. "I have to get to know you so I can help you out, right?"

"Yeah, that makes sense I guess. Okay, well, um…Professor Sprout said she was worried about the grades I'm getting on my quizzes and essays."

"In all of your classes? Or Herbology? Or any other specific class?"

"Almost all of them, I suppose. I'm afraid I'm just not very good at classwork, or that's what Professor Sprout said anyway."

Marina and Rachel ended up sitting in the library longer than originally planned. They were there long enough, in fact, that the older years, who had an extra class at the end of the day during the free period the first and second years got to enjoy, started flooding the library. Marina could see Rachel getting more and more jumpy as more and more older students sat down around them, and she knew they'd have to part ways until next week very soon. Finally they did, once Marina got Rachel to decide for herself if Thursday after classes was a good day for her or not. Once Rachel left the library, Marina sat at the table for an extra ten minutes, her head in her hands and her elbows on the table, thinking.

Talking to Rachel was like pulling teeth, to use an expression she'd learned from Annie last year. The girl was so impartial about absolutely everything. Marina couldn't tell if she really just did not care one wit or if she cared so much that she couldn't make any decision at all. And she did not seem to think for herself all that much. Half of what she told Marina had been told to her by Sprout. So this would be challenging, but not in an interesting way. It would be challenging because it would be so tedious. Marina saw now that Peter's troubles were actually ridiculously easy to solve. Rachel's troubles might actually require a full personality change to truly solve, but Marina didn't want to force her into that. The working theory right now was that Rachel was so bad at taking quizzes and writing essays because she was indecisive and had no critical thinking ability. She could repeat what she'd been told, but she wasn't good at understanding and reapplying what she'd been told, possibly because she just couldn't make her mind up about what to do with the information she'd been given. Ugh. How in Merlin's pants could she even approach this as a problem?

She thought about it over the course of the week and consulted with Annie and Quincy and Gideon and even Lark and Artemis. Lark just went on and on about how much she would hate to be in Marina's position, Artemis didn't say anything much because they were eating dinner and Lark was talking, Quincy shrugged and jokingly suggested Marina toughen up and give Rachel the what-for about her habits, and none of that was at all helpful. But Annie was sort of helpful, and Gideon was sort of helpful.

Gideon thought for a minute and said, "Well, you could try to point out to her what her problem is, gently, of course. Maybe if she's aware of it she'll work on fixing it. Oh, and Molly says that the way she avoids being indecisive is she throws out the options she can't pick until she only has one left and then she goes with that one."

Annie had a tip for the thinking problem. "Start with something she's already comfortable with, and show her how she can apply it to other stuff. Like how you can use Herbology in Potions. Hopefully she'll pick up on how that works, but Hufflepuffs can be kind of stupid, so maybe she won't. And what do you mean you don't think she knows that there's a completely separate wizarding world? I'm a muggleborn, and I even I understood that by my first week here."

So Marina took what they said and tried relating it back to her meetings with Rachel, and it seemed to help. There wasn't much else Marina could think to do. She did think of one thing though, and she thought it was decently effective. Marina and Rachel would spend the last half-hour of their meetings going over assignments Rachel wanted help with. Marina just refused to give Rachel the answer. Of course she helped her, but she forced Rachel to make the final decision or come up with the final thought by herself, and Marina noticed it got a little easier for her each week.

By the first week of May, Marina was happy enough with Rachel's progress. She was still slow to come to an answer, but she was much better about coming to the right answer. Essays were iffy if Rachel was doing them by herself, but she was less iffy than she had been in March. She was confident in Peter's abilities, too. The boy was doing just fine by himself, and Marina hadn't thought he really needed to go back to weekly meetings, even when it came to studying. It seemed that so long as she was still checking in every once in a while and holding him to a standard, he would pretty much follow that standard. And, of course, it helped that Remus was fully supportive of helping Peter study and had managed to wrangle James into studying, too. Sirius still though he was too cool for it, or something. So all in all, she thought her tutoring adventures this year were pretty successful.

There was one small problem, though: Marina had pushed off her own studying in her efforts to help Rachel and Peter study. The week before exams, she panicked.

"I'm going to fail my Transfig exam, Annie, I swear," she wailed. "And I'll probably fail History, too, now that I think about it. I've barely been paying attention and I've fallen so far behind in actually reading the textbook—"

"You won't fail Transfiguration because you've actually improved considerably this year, and you didn't fail last year. You know the theory, and you're a lot better at the practice. You won't fail History of Magic, either, because Artemis took notes that cut out the long-windedness of the textbook like she always does and you can just read them instead," Annie answered from where she was finishing their most recent Potions essay on her bed.

"Alright, that's fair. But what about Astronomy and Herbology? You know I'm not great at recalling straight facts. And what about Defense? I'm sure I only did so well last year because we hadn't introduced dueling last year, but now we have to worry about dueling, and I'm rubbish at dueling! I can't focus enough to duel, I get distracted too easily!"

"Mina, you'll be fine. You didn't fail any of those classes last year, and you won't this year," Annie soothed. "And besides, if you're so worried, you could start studying right now. You're not doing anything else."

Marina rolled from her back onto her stomach and propped herself up on her elbows. "No," she said, "I'm not in the mood."

"You haven't done Slughorn's essay yet, either."

Marina scrunched her face up. "I know."

"It's due tomorrow."

"I know."

"You should really work on it before it gets much later."

"Why does he feel the need to cram everything in at the end of the year? I'm sure this could have been avoided with proper planning on his part." Marina flopped off her elbows. Maia slunk out from under the bed and hopped up onto the mattress, kneaded on the duvet, turned four circles, and curled up with her head propped on the back of Marina's thigh.

Annie gave no response. The scratching of her quill on parchment was the only sound heard from her corner of the dorm—metaphorically speaking, of course. Their dorm was circular. There were no corners.

The next morning saw Marina rushing to finish the Potions essay at breakfast. She finished it, of course, and vowed to never again allow herself to put off her work so late.


	8. Chapter 8

**AN: Wow, hi. It's been, uh, too long. Months too long. I'm sorry about that. I've been overwhelmingly busy with schoolwork and the process of applying to college. But hey, better late than never, right?**

 **In case you need a refresher (because I certainly would), we last left off with Marina's adventures in tutoring first years, namely Peter Pettigrew and my own little Rachel the Hufflepuff, at Fliwick's request. This chapter didn't get quite as far as I wanted it to, and it's certainly on the shorter side for this story, but I think I like the way it turned out anyway. Enjoy, leave a review if you'd like!**

It was Marina's aptitude for taking exams that got her through with even less studying than she'd done last year (except for Transfiguration—Gideon and Quincy had once again spent an extremely generous amount of time trying to help her improve). The morning of the last day of term, the heads of houses sent exam results to each of their students to wait for them in sealed envelopes on their bedside tables. Annie woke Marina excitedly, shaking the parchment list of her scores in Marina's face.

"Look, Mina, look! I improved my marks since last year!" she whisper-exclaimed, grin the widest it ever got. "Open yours, come on!" Annie stuck Marina's envelope right under her nose so that she had to cross her bleary eyes just to look at the blue eagle wax seal.

As Marina sat up, she noticed Artemis laying down against her pillow, quietly looking over her own results. Lark's curtains were, of course, still shut, not doing much to muffle her snoring. Annie perched on the edge of Marina's mattress, waiting, so she slid her finger under the flap of the envelope and broke the seal, flipped it open, and slid out the folded parchment within. Slowly, Marina straightened out the paper, smoothing out the creases, not yet reading her results. She was nervous, but she was also simply tired and sluggish.

 _Marina Stewart-Lautrec_

 _Year 2 Exams_

 _Astronomy: Exceeds Expectations_

 _Charms: Outstanding_

 _Defense Against the Dark Arts: Outstanding_

 _Herbology: Exceeds Expectations_

 _History of Magic: Acceptable_

 _Potions: Outstanding_

 _Transfiguration: Exceeds Expectations_

 _Congratulations; we look forward to seeing you for your third year in September. Expect supply lists to arrive by owl no later than 1 August._

It took at least two minutes of staring at the page for Marina to absorb the information, but once she'd blinked her eyes a few times and yawned once, she felt her chest explode with the pride of success. "I got an E!" she whisper-shouted, clutching the paper to her chest. "Annie, I got an E!"

"In what?" Annie took the paper from Marina's hands, scanned it, and then looked back up at Marina with an even bigger grin, if that was possible. "You got an E! You improved in Transfig! I'm so proud of you!"

Marina grinned back. "I dropped in History, but I don't care because I got an E in Transfig!"

"History's useless anyway," Annie laughed quietly. "Rarely anyone needs it in life."

At breakfast, Marina noticed Rachel sitting at the Hufflepuff table, looking happy enough. She decided she should probably go over and ask how the first year had done, so she broke away from her friends to do just that. She figured it would probably be rude to just sit down without being asked, even if it was a table of un-ruffle-able Hufflepuffs, so instead she tapped Rachel's shoulder and smiled when the girl turned.

"Good morning," Rachel said shyly, tucking a few blonde curls behind her ear. "Um, what are you doing over here?"

"I just wanted to see how your exams went. I hope you were successful." It struck Marina suddenly that all the Hufflepuff first years had stopped talking. She quickly glanced up, noticing they all seemed to be paying attention to her. Lovely.

Rachel blushed. "Oh…um, they—they went okay. Thank you. How did—um, how did your exams go?"

"Pretty well," Marina answered. This was probably not as good an idea as she'd thought; things were getting uncomfortable now. Too many eyes on them. "Alright, well, I just wanted to check in. Have a good summer, Rachel!" She tried to end with a cheery tone, even if the awkwardness made her want to cringe.

"Oh, you too!"

Marina smiled again and hurried back to her own table. With a sigh and a slouch of relief, she sat, prepared to pile her plate high with…oh, there were omelets this morning!

"What was that about?" Lark asked, speaking as she always did with her mouth full. It was almost odd eating breakfast with her again after two years of almost never seeing her before they left for their first class. Annie had wanted to wake Lark a little early so they could all celebrate their exam results together in the dorm. Lark took another bite of syrup-drenched pancake, watching Marina for an answer.

"I wanted to see if that girl I tutor did well on her exams," Marina replied, more focused on the steaming omelet she'd just served herself. There was cheese melted over top of it, and it looked positively stuffed with…something.

"Oh, right, the tutoring. You know—"

Marina didn't get to find out what Lark was about to say she knew. At that exact moment, Gideon deposited himself on the bench on the far side of Annie just as Quincy's arm shot forward from behind her to grab a piece of bacon from the tray on the table. Marina felt him settle his forearms on her shoulders just before she saw his non-bacon hand appear at the side of her face.

"Morning," Gideon drawled, drawing out the "o." A new place setting appeared for him on the table as he reached for the box of Pixie Puffs.

"Oh, good morning," Annie said cheerfully. "Are those first year boys planning something?" After a second glance, she tsked and added, "Neither of your shirts are tucked in." There was some fumbling kerfuffle as Gideon attempted to shove his shirt into his trousers in while still sitting down, and Quincy tried to tuck his in one-handed so as not to drop his bacon.

"What, can't we share the last breakfast of term with our dear Ravenclaw friends?" Quincy asked, feigning offense in his voice to cover up his talking-to-Annie jitters. Marina could just picture his faux-shocked face and had to smile. "This is the last we'll see of you two for months, you know," he went on, assumedly referring to Lark and Artemis, his nervous undertone gone.

"You better not be getting bacon crumbs in my hair," Marina threatened, cutting into the omelet to reveal onions, tomatoes, mushrooms, and spinach. Yum.

"I'm not! Don't—" Quincy cut himself off suddenly, and Marina sighed, passing a napkin up to him. He swiped at the top of her head with it. She resisted the urge to groan loudly, settling instead for rolling her eyes.

That was when disaster struck, proving Annie right.

Now, the student body was no stranger to mealtime pranks by the first year Gryffindor boys. They happened at least once a month, often involving dung bombs (they must keep getting them from older students; no way could they pull off sneaking into Hogsmeade to stock up on Zonko's dung bombs), sometimes floating food, and occasionally explosions. Marina had spent enough time with Peter and the rest to know that the only thing restricting those boys' creativity was their lack of skill, and she expected their mischief to only grow more and more interesting as the years went on. This, though, she hadn't quite been expecting from first year-level students, even budding geniuses like James, Remus, Sirius, and Peter.

The Slytherin banners from last night's end of year feast were still hanging above the breakfasting students and professors, until suddenly they turned bright, solid red, one at a time, each with a loud pop, flash of light, and the heavy flutter of fabric. Marina only had a second to wonder how they even knew that charm because she was sure she'd only learned it a few months ago before bright golden fireworks exploded above the hall, showering glitter onto the occupants below. Again: how did they even know how to do that? Where was the glitter even coming from? The Gryffindor table burst into applause and cheers and whistles. Marina looked up at the professors' table, amused to see Slughorn in a state of distress, Flitwick grinning into his goblet, Dumbledore looking quietly pleased, as if he'd been expecting this, and McGonagall half out of her seat, seemingly torn between congratulating or punishing the culprits.

"Ah, bloody hell," Gideon swore, trying to brush the golden sparkles out of his unruly red hair to no effect.

Annie gasped, scandalized by his language, but Marina honestly couldn't blame the boy. Her omelet was now glittery. "Did you two know about this?" she asked, craning her chin up to raise her eyebrows at Quincy. He only grinned down at her sheepishly.

"Er—not exactly…" Gideon answered, giving a despairing look at his gold-dusted cereal.

"We, uh, had an idea that they would be doing something. Just a vague hint of a hunch, I swear!" Quincy added.

The whole train ride to King's Cross, Marina couldn't get over the prank. She was impressed. Sure, the Colovaria they used was a little sloppy—a well-cast color change charm should produce no popping sound, and the resulting color was likely more garish than the Gryffindor scarlet she imagined they'd been going for—and the glitter fallout was less than ideal—she had a hunch they'd have avoided that if they knew how—but it was more advanced than anything she'd seen them pull off yet. Was it petty, changing the Slytherin banners red? Absolutely. But it was really cool. Marina wondered how much preparation had gone into it. They must've researched outside of their required textbooks, and Marina felt weirdly proud of them for that.

—

In mid-July, Marina thumped barefoot down the stairs of her house and strolled into the kitchen for breakfast, only to pause when both of her parents smiled at her from their seats at the table. Even groggy as she was, she could tell something was up. First of all, they looked like they were expecting her and had been waiting specifically for her. Usually they were already in the middle of eating by the time she found herself awake and in the kitchen. Second of all, they both looked too happy. These were no casual, did-you-sleep-well-dear, morning smiles; these were the smiles of two parents who were too excited about whatever news they had for their daughter. And—yes, that was it! They looked like they had news to share, or more specifically a surprise to share.

"Um, good morning…" Marina said slowly, eyes darting between her two parents suspiciously.

"Good morning dearest," her mum said. Then her parents shared a conspiring look, and Marina could've sworn she heard them do that breathy almost-giggle thing people did sometimes. "Sit down, Mina, we have something to tell you."

Not again! Really? This was all too similar to when her parents told her they were engaged. Marina took a seat, eyes narrowed.

"Can I—?" Theo asked Bobbie.

Bobbie nodded. "Go ahead!"

"Your mum is pregnant," he stated, almost too casually for an announcement of that caliber.

"Congratulations," Marina said, smiling at her parents, who seemed about to burst with happiness. "When—um, how long—…" How do you even phrase that politely? She couldn't just say "When are you giving birth," could she?

Luckily her papa knew exactly what she meant. "I believe the words you are looking for are 'when are you due,' no?" he supplied with an always-gentle smile.

"Yes. Right. That." If Marina spent too much brain power on this entire situation she'd end up with a mental picture she really, really wanted to avoid.

"I'm due in February. You'll have a baby sibling when you come home for Easter holiday!" her mum gushed, or as close as she could ever come to gushing. Her mum didn't gush.

Marina nodded, smiled again, and decided she would really like to move on to eating breakfast. She had more questions, of course, because when did she ever not have more questions, but it was probably better that she not interrogate her own parents over something that made them so happy. Maybe she could ask later. Mostly she just wanted to know why, but after the way that same question dampened the joy of her parents' engagement last year, Marina figured it was probably better that she just wonder on her own for a while until she had a better chance to ask. And anyway, if she thought about her mum being pregnant for too long…well, again, she really, really, really wanted to avoid certain mental pictures.

Later that week, though, Marina did talk to Quincy about it. As per usual, or maybe Marina could call it a tradition now, they discussed it over ice cream on the curb somewhere along the street between their houses. They sat wherever they'd caught the ice cream van, truthfully.

"I feel like I should understand, but I really don't," she admitted, stabbing her spoon into her scoop of butter pecan.

Quincy licked at his cone, surprisingly keeping the drips under control thus far. "Well, Mina, when a man and a woman love each other very much…" he teased, laughing when Marina shoved his arm. "Watch the ice cream!" he shouted, grin splitting his face over his own cleverness.

"Ugh," Marina sighed, rolling her eyes. "I understand that part, you idiot! I mean why they're having another child, not why my mum's pregnant!" She settled, taking a bite of ice cream. "I mean, I know when people get married they tend to have kids right after—"

"Not my parents; they waited four years before they had me," Quincy interrupted, still doing alright with his cone.

Marina continued as if he hadn't spoken. "—and that feels like it should be enough to make sense, but what about me? I'm a contradiction. I don't fit the guideline. My parents already had me long before they were married, so why wait thirteen years until they were actually properly married to have a second child? It just seems like a really odd age gap, you know?"

Quincy shrugged. "Well, I don't know much about age gaps," he began. "Maybe—"

"Did they wait to see how I would turn out before they decided it was safe to have a second child?" she interrupted, mind still churning. "Maybe they wanted me out of the house for most of the year so they could just focus on raising another baby. What if they decided raising me without being married was the wrong choice and that's why they waited until they were really married to have their next baby?"

"Maybe you're overthinking it," Quincy suggested. "Sometimes there isn't a real reason. People are weird and spontaneous like that sometimes."

"Maybe, but I don't know," Marina replied. "It would make me feel better if there's a logical reason."

Quincy smiled and transferred his cone to his other hand so he could sling his arm around Marina's shoulders. "There can't always be a logical reason, you robot," he joked. "Maybe your dad was like, 'Hey, do you want another kid?' And your mum was like, 'Sure, why not?' And that was the end of it."

With another sigh, Marina dropped her head onto her best friend's shoulder. "You might be right," she conceded, taking another bite of ice cream.

They sat like that in silence for another few moments, comfortable and focusing on enjoying their ice cream. Then the bottom tip of Quincy's waffle cone started leaking blue cotton candy drips all over the place, and Marina sat up so she and Quincy could attack his hand and shorts and shoes with paper napkins. Once they'd cleaned up as much of the sticky mess as they possibly could, they moved on to other subjects.

"Gideon and I are thinking of trying out for the Quidditch team again this year. A lot of the team graduated, so there's plenty of positions to fill," Quincy said brightly. "We finally have it figured out, I'd say: Gid is best playing as Beater, and I do best as Keeper. We're both okay at Chaser, too, if that's what we wind up getting to play on the team."

Marina shook her head with a fond grin. "I doubt if you're mediocre Chasers the captain wouldn't just find really good Chasers instead. If you make the team this year, you'll make the positions you're the best at."

"Well, I really hope Gid makes Beater then. His brother Fabian's gonna be a seventh year. It would be really cool if Gideon and Fabian could be Beaters together, even if only for one year," Quincy said.

After a moment, Marina remembered something she'd just about forgotten. "Speaking of our friends," she began, "what's the deal with you and Annie?"

Quincy was in the middle of taking a calculated bite out of his cone, but at Marina's words he jerked in surprise and ended up stabbing his nose into his ice cream and stabbing the edge of the cone into his gums. He flushed red as she gave him another napkin for his face. "Uh…why—why do you, uh, ask?"

Marina laughed. "Because you're blushing right now! And whenever you have to talk directly to Annie, actually," she answered. "You fancy her, don't you?"

To her great amusement, he actually screwed his eyes shut and groaned the most disappointed and tortured groan she had ever heard. "Do we really have to talk about this?" he questioned, reminding Marina of a petulant little kid.

"Yes we do!" She laughed again when his entire body slumped as he sighed.

"Quit laughing," he said, chin on his chest. "Just because—just because I—I, uh, fancy Annie doesn't mean you get to laugh at me. It's not funny," he grumbled.

"Okay, I'm sorry," Marina said, trying to school her face into a serious expression like her mum could do so well to hide when she wanted to laugh at Papa. "I'll stop laughing. I swear it's not because I think your crush is funny, really! I swear on Merlin's spectacles!"

Quincy popped his head back up. "Did Merlin even have spectacles?"

"We don't know that Merlin wore pants either."

"Fair point," he nodded.

Marina finished off the last of her ice cream, kicking her feet out in front of her. "So…you admit you fancy Annie, then?"

"Yeah, I suppose," Quincy sighed, blushing again. Marina could tell he was almost bursting to talk about it if she could just provoke him into it. Kindly, of course. Not in, like, a mean or pushy way. In a friendly, just-trying-to-get-things-off-your-chest-for-you sort of way.

"Do you want to talk about it at all?" she prompted.

"I—well…it might be good to hear things from a girl's perspective."

"Right."

"Yeah."

"…so are you going to tell her?" Marina asked.

"What? No!" Quincy exclaimed.

"Why not?"

"Because—because I just can't!"

"What makes you say that?"

"I—…well—I—because she's Annie! She'll be so—so upfront about it, and…I don't know!" he spluttered.

"What's wrong with being upfront?"

"Nothing!" Quincy stared down at the last bit of his ice cream. "That's, uh, one of the things I guess I like about her…"

Marina smiled. "So why is that why you won't say anything?" He'd crack any second now.

Just as she expected, Quincy had reached his limit of spluttering inarticulate-ness. He opened and closed his mouth a few times before taking a deep breath and letting all his words rush out of him in one big sigh. "If she doesn't like me and I tell her she won't be nice about it, she'll just say it, and it's not like that's mean because I like that she just says whatever because it's cute I guess but she'll reject me and she won't even let me down gently and it'll be so embarrassing and then because she just says anything she might bring it up again and embarrass me even more and it would be awful and I'd never live it down." And immediately, he chomped on his remaining ice cream before covering his face with his now-free hands.

So he was scared about the hit his pride might take if Annie didn't like him back. Understandable, she thought. That was the thing about Gryffindors, as far as she could tell, anyway: they were brave, but they were so proud, and half the time their pride goaded them into stupid stuff and half the time they were incapacitated by their pride if someone hurt it. Marina bumped his shoulder with her own. "The mighty, fearless Gryffindor is afraid?" she teased as gently as she could tease.

Quincy huffed between his fingers. "I'm not afraid. I'm just…I'm just concerned, is all."

"Well, it's all well and good to be concerned, but sooner or later you should tell her, I think." Marina paused, trying to dig through her brain for anything that might suggest whether or not Annie liked Quincy. She'd have to find out as soon as possible. "She might like you too, you know."

Unfortunately, Annie's summer correspondence with Marina was blunt, as usual, but too blunt. It was blunt to the point of being curt—terse, even. Yes, she was doing fine, but no, she couldn't see Marina and Quincy anytime, and no, she wouldn't be school shopping with them this year. Marina wondered why Annie was writing so lifelessly and almost rudely, but she thought it would be even more rude to ask her about it. She got the feeling that Annie was not, in fact, having a fine summer, and that writing to her about Quincy would be a bad idea, no matter how curious Marina was.


	9. Chapter 9

**AN: So a month isn't too bad, right? All things considered, updating with a month between chapters isn't half bad, right? I've been super busy, but let me tell you it PAID OFF! I am pleased to announce that I got accepted to my second choice college and will hear from my first choice before Christmas! Now I just have to make it through the rest of the current school year...**

 **Also, I originally planned to take this chapter all the way to Christmas again like I have in the past, but we're finally in third year (yay!) and the plot is going to get a little thicker, I hope, so I'm paying more attention to some details. And this chapter is all over the place, too. It's crazy. I'm not sure what happened. It's over 5,000 words, somehow. I do know that I am** ** _UPPING THE RATING TO T FROM HERE ON OUT_** **because they're teenagers and sex jokes and bad words are a given. So PLEASE BE WARNED!**

Third year was the year all young Hogwarts students eagerly awaited since at least halfway through their first year. The reason was simple: electives. At the tail end of second year, each student met with their respective head of house to decide on what extra classes they wish to undertake as they move forward in their education. Marina herself chose Ancient Runes, Divination, and Arithmancy. As she discussed with Professor Flitwick, she enjoyed figuring things out in the process of learning rather than being fed information with little mental engagement, which generally ruled out Muggle Studies and Care of Magical Creatures (this is also part of why she felt so bored during History of Magic) and left only these three classes. In a letter from home, her mum highly recommended Divination and Arithmancy, and her papa gave his full support of whatever she chose to study.

In September, Marina returned to the castle with much anticipation for her first elective classes to begin. But first, the feast. She and Annie split from Quincy and Gideon to find seats at the Ravenclaw table near Artemis and Lark. Unfortunately, Artemis and Lark had decided to sit on opposite sides of the table today, and seemed content sitting closer to some older Ravenclaws than the boys in their own year—one of which was Alfred Smith. The table was quite densely packed with the whole house in attendance; there would be no maintained physical distance like they could normally keep from him. Marina shuddered. One of them would have to sit next to the over-inflated balloon-ego boy.

"Well, shall we draw straws?" Marina suggested to Annie.

"With what straws?" Annie asked. "I'll just sit next to Alfred. I'm much better at ignoring him than you are."

The girls parted to walk down either side of the long table and climbed over the bench seats. Lark immediately pulled them into a conversation about the new dog her family got over the summer, claiming it was part crup—whatever that meant. Marina knocked into Evan White as she got settled into her seat.

"Oh, I'm sorry!" she said quickly, glancing over.

"It's no problem!" he replied. "It's a cramped spot, after all." And then he smiled at her, and Marina felt her face grow warm, and she smiled quickly back and then spun back around to face her friends and face away from him.

Lark had been watching the exchange across the table with a single raised eyebrow, even as she continued chattering on about Gingersnap, her dog. Annie hadn't seemed to notice, focused as she was on not looking in the boys' direction.

"He's taking Runes," Artemis said quietly.

"Um…how—how did you find that out already?" Marina asked. Was she stuttering now? She didn't stutter. Quincy stuttered. She could feel that her face was probably still flushed.

Artemis shrugged. "It isn't my fault if boys don't know how to control their conversational volume," she muttered, returning her attention to Lark.

Luckily, Marina did not have any of her elective classes the next day. As the previous two years had passed, the Ravenclaw girls ignored the boys as much as they possibly could in their core classes, especially Alfred. Unluckily, the second day of classes saw Marina in Arithmancy right before lunch with Artemis and Alfred bloody Smith, of all people. Kingsley Shacklebolt and Emmeline Vance, two of the Gryffindors, were there too, as well as a couple Hufflepuffs and a few Slytherins. In such a small class, Marina feared there would be no way to avoid Alfred. Unfortunately, she was right: he picked a seat directly to her left.

"We Ravenclaws should stick together, you know!" he said as he produced the textbook from his bag and positioned it on his desk.

Marina was fairly certain she had never heard any Ravenclaw assert that they should stick together before. In fact, she was convinced after her first two years that Ravenclaws didn't care about their house identity as much as the other houses did. Slytherins existed in exclusive packs, and Quincy refused to even tell Marina where the entrance to Gryffindor House was in the castle. Hufflepuffs seemed generally generous and accepting, but Marina knew they were a tight-knit bunch. Ravenclaws, however, seemed more like individuals co-existing in a shared space than a firmly bonded house. She even saw students she was sure were from other houses in the common room from time to time. Therefore, she felt her reaction to Alfred's statement was completely justified.

"What are you on about?" She furrowed her brow and scowled in Alfred's general direction.

Artemis leaned forward to see around Marina. "The other houses are families, Smith," she said. "We only claim to be a community."

"Even a community must come together," Alfred replied, looking smug with himself.

When Marina got annoyed with the way Alfred was smiling down at the quills he was straightening on his desk, she turned to look at Artemis, who had narrowed her eyes at the far wall. "There is no adversity here," she said at last.

Alfred looked up, one eyebrow quirked in a funny-looking expression of slightly worried confusion, or at least that's how Marina interpreted it. "Of course not. What's that supposed to mean?"

"Communities need only come together in times of adversity."

"Well, perhaps the adversity is nothing more than a mixed group of outsiders to the community," Alfred argued. "Then, in order to maintain the integrity of the community, its members must gather together." He was back to looking smug, and Marina hoped Artemis had another remark up her sleeve.

The other Ravenclaw girl swiped her hand up to quickly push a bit of her short hair behind her ear. "Rejecting new influences is a sure way to weaken the community. The best way to strengthen any group is to introduce new life to it."

"Ooh, like a vaccine!"

Marina, Artemis, and Alfred turned to look behind them. A Hufflepuff boy with very blonde hair froze under the three stares. "Er—I'm sorry to intrude—just—my mum's a nurse, and all…" he said.

"What's a vaccine?" Artemis asked.

The boy—Marina thought his name might be Eric—opened his mouth to explain, but before he could get any words out, the classroom door slammed shut behind them, and all the students in the room turned their attention to the tall, hawk-nosed woman storming her way to the front of the room. Her robes were a strict gray-colored wool in a plain design, and her white hair was expertly coiffed into a smooth twist under a very proper-looking black hat. Despite the foreboding figure she cut, Marina could see laughter lines around her eyes as she swept past the desks to take her place behind the stone podium.

The professor—for this must be the professor—cleared her throat in a way that reminded Marina a little of McGonagall. "Welcome to Arithmancy," she began in a very smooth voice. "I am Professor Agrippa Sigma. Starting this year, you will learn the beauty of divination by numerology. We will examine the methods of many ancient cultures and the modern methods perfected and used today. There will be no guesswork; this is arithmancy, not the other nonsense you learn in Divination, and I think you will find it challenging, but rewarding work." Professor Sigma turned to begin writing in chalk—not using her wand, Marina noted—but turned at the last moment. "Oh, and I apologize for the door. There's a draft."

When the hour of class was up, Artemis and Marina moved quickly to outpace Alfred and get to the Great Hall for lunch.

"I like Professor Sigma," Marina commented as she and Artemis dodged between students in the lunch rush. "What do you think?"

"She writes like a muggle." Artemis glanced over her shoulder. "That isn't a bad thing, just interesting. And she takes her class seriously. We've lost him."

"Oh thank Merlin," Marina sighed. "What other electives have you got this year, again?"

The girls slowed their steps somewhat as they neared the stairs, and Artemis paused for half a moment to readjust the strap of her bag on her shoulder. "Divination and Care."

"Quincy's taking Care. So is all of Gryffindor, from the sound of it."

"It's a class for hands-on learners, certainly."

Lunch went well, as the girls sat far from the boys. Quincy took the time to pop over and mess up Marina's lengthening hair on the way to his seat, which got an eye roll considering her place halfway down the Ravenclaw table was quite out of the way of his place somewhere at the Gryffindor table. After lunch they all went to Transfiguration with the Hufflepuffs, and Professor McGonagall jumped right into class with an essay "to tell me what you remember from your last two years." Then it was History of Magic, and Marina took the opportunity to have a nap. Annie woke her five minutes before the end of class just in time for Marina to catch the reading assignment over the troll wars. It seemed their core classes cared very little for the fact that this was only the second day of term.

"We'll see you later, Mina," Lark said quite loudly, probably louder than necessary, after class ended and Binns dismissed them. "Have fun in Ancient Runes without us! I hope you'll be able to find your way there…"

Marina tilted her head in confusion. "Why are you—"

"You should walk with us, Marina," Evan White said, unwittingly cutting off Marina's question. "Xavier and I are taking Runes too."

Immediately, heat flared up in her face. "Oh, alright, yeah, that would be lovely," she said, tripping a little on her tongue.

The walk across the castle yielded very little meaningful conversation, but it was full of pleasantries. That is, it was full of pleasantries until Evan said something along the lines of "it's going to be harder this year" in reference to Transfig.

"That's what she said, mate," Xavier snorted.

Evan paused and chuckled, jabbing at his friend with his elbow, before picking right back up with the conversation. Marina almost stopped him to ask what in Merlin's name that was about and who "she" was, but decided against it. She didn't want to look like an idiot in front of Evan.

Marina furrowed her brow at her own thoughts as they entered the Runes classroom. Why should she worry about looking like an idiot? It wasn't her fault for never having heard this joke before. And anyway, what did she care about something Evan and Xavier seemed to find funny between themselves?

Professor Traduce was a very round, very short man, though not as short as Flitwick. He seemed cheerful and fascinated with what he taught, which was always a good quality to have in a teacher, Marina thought. What she liked most was his very casual personality. Rather than standing the entire class, he sat on his desk to speak to the students, and he spoke to them like adults. Unlike any other professor, he talked about his wife and his adult children. Marina was slightly shocked; she hadn't been aware that their professors had lives outside of the school.

"You will need to study for this course, of course," he said at the end of the introductory hour. "This is a language you'll be learning, and a dead one, at that. I won't ask you to speak it, but you'll learn to read it and write it and translate into and out of it by your OWLs in fifth year. Hopefully I'll be able to tie in a little charms and transfiguration theory while I'm at it, since spellcasting is built around the ancient runes. But anyway, you'll have to study it quite a lot to reach the level I know you all can achieve."

Marina thought she would like Professor Traduce quite a lot.

Then it was Friday, and Ravenclaws had double Potions in the morning. The girls, of course, followed the usual routine for waking Lark last. Double Potions, as always, was a blast—Toni Zabini blew up the first potion of the year, and Slughorn hovered around her workspace as she and her partner tried to clean up, commenting on the similar failures and inspiring successes of her older siblings. Potions was followed by Divination, and Marina wasn't sure whether she would end up liking the class or not. The ancient woman who must've been at least three hundred years old seemed nice enough, if a little creepy, and she did get to see Quincy and Gideon. Only, Professor Sigma's words about guesswork kept returning to her, and Marina wasn't so sure she wanted to take a class that relied on guesswork rather than solid solutions.

Up in Ravenclaw Tower after Friday's dinner, the third year girls claimed a study nook to institute this year's homework lists. Lark used the pretty calligraphic handwriting she'd learned over summer to title one sheet of parchment for each class they were all taking, even electives, though the girls were in charge of their own electives. It was actually slightly daunting to look at all the homework they had already accrued even so early in the year. Marina held Maia in her lap so the cat wouldn't bat at Artemis's quill as she started on the Transfiguration essay. How would they survive if the workload was already so much?

In addition to her own classes, Professor Flitwick added another responsibility to Marina's plate: tutoring. On Monday, after Charms class was over, he asked her to stay behind for a moment.

"It won't take long," the little man assured her, straightening some papers at his desk.

Annie told her they'd talk more at lunch (they had been discussing the likelihood of attending another Gryffindor Quidditch tryout this year, as Quincy and Gideon had apparently mentioned it in Care last week, even though term had just started a few days ago) and headed out of the room with Lark and Artemis. Feeling reasonably confident that she couldn't be in trouble, Marina approached her head of house's desk. Flitwick, of course, asked if her year was starting well or not in his slightly awkward way before jumping right into the issue at hand.

"I wondered if you might like to take on a few more students under your tutelage," Flitwick asked—stated?

Marina tipped her head to one side. "Oh. Well, my schedule is busier this year—"

"Of course," he nodded, "of course."

"I suppose it depends on how many students you have in mind. And, if you don't mind my asking, how can you tell already what students need help?" Marina felt a little proud that she hadn't just blurted out her possibly disrespectful question and instead phrased it with a little more tact.

Flitwick folded his small hands. "I don't mean to cut into your own studying time, of course. Perhaps some time on the weekend would suit you better?" He smiled under his mustache when Marina nodded. "As for the students, Professor Sprout contacted me about the girl you saw towards the end of last year, and I have one or two students in mind based on last year's exam grades for my class. I don't expect you to give anything more than some guidance with charms for those individuals, of course."

"Sounds alright to me, Professor."

"Lovely!" He grinned, delighted. "If you could look into your schedule and let me know what days are best for you, I'll take care of everything else. I don't want to take more than an hour of your time each week, of course!"

Marina smiled. The enthusiasm for teaching students that radiated from him was one of the reasons that Flitwick was her favorite professor. "Anything else?" she asked, trying very hard not to sound snappish or impatient.

He dismissed her cheerily, and even wrote her a note in case their conversation made her late for Arithmancy, her next class. She made it on time, but she appreciated his thought all the same.

—

By October, Marina had settled into the groove of third year. Despite what Flitwick had originally said, he and Marina decided that at least for now, she should give each second year an hour a week. She had the time, certainly, or else she would make time. It was fine; she felt like this was important and worthy of working around. On Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, Marina had a free hour instead of an elective class at the end of her day, so she decided to dedicate those times to tutoring. On Tuesdays, she saw Rachel, Wednesdays were for a Slytherin boy named Randy, and Fridays she met with a Ravenclaw boy, Levi, that she often saw in the common room. The tutoring thing was going well, all things considered. Rachel was doing better than last year where thinking on her own was concerned, and she had already identified that Levi was simply too distracted by things more interesting than Charms homework—he was much more fascinated by brewing potions. Randy, the Slytherin boy, was polite but very reticent. He started off ignoring her presence but for asking a couple quiet questions during their hour, but Marina hoped he would warm up to her yet.

What was really remarkable about the beginning of October was the beginning of the Quidditch season. During Divination on a chilly Friday morning, Gideon and Quincy plopped into their seats behind Annie and Marina, almost vibrating with excitement.

"Mina, you have to come support us tomorrow morning! Gid and I are trying out again," Quincy announced.

Annie brushed some dust off the crystal ball sitting at their table. "You two made real spectacles of yourselves last year. Have you improved much since?" she asked.

"I—well, we, uh, practiced over summer—quite a bit," Quincy replied. Marina heard his chair against the carpeted floor behind her; he must've been fidgeting.

"Beater and Keeper, yeah?" she asked, turning in her seat to face the boys.

Gideon nodded, auburn hair flopping around his face. "I've been practicing with Fabian for Beater a whole lot. He says I might have a shot if the team needs a new one this year."

Their conversation was interrupted by the beginning of class, and Marina spent the whole time thinking about Quidditch, something that came as quite the surprise to her. She hoped Gideon and Quincy made the team, since they wanted it so much. On the other hand, Quidditch was a dangerous sport, and she hoped neither of them made the team. Gideon at least made the team, since his brother was on it. She wanted Quincy to be happy, too, but she was afraid of him making the team. It was a dangerous sport, Quidditch, and she wasn't sure what she would do if he was maimed or seriously injured. Since Marina was seven years old, Quincy had somehow stuck around with her and she with him. It was concerning, was all. Honestly, though, Marina was prepared to support her friends no matter what they ended up doing.

Farther towards the front of the room, Irving—she wasn't entirely sure what his last name was—sneezed rather disruptively in the middle of whatever the Divination professor—she wasn't entirely sure what any part of her name was—was saying. Irving was one of the Ravenclaw boys in her year, which would be unremarkable except for the fact that he shared a dormitory room with Alfred Smith. This was so very unfortunate, and Marina truly did not understand how anyone would survive living with Alfred Smith. Additionally, Irving shared a dormitory room with Evan White. Also Xavier Whatever-his-name-was, but he wasn't as important to Marina's thoughts as Evan was at the moment. Marina wondered if Evan would try out for the Ravenclaw Quidditch team. She might feel compelled to attend matches if Evan would play in them.

Annie kicked her under the table in time to catch the old woman say, "Gaze at the balls, children. We'll take the rest of class today to practice using them." For whatever reason, this prompted Quincy and Gideon to snicker behind her, and Marina was reminded of the odd joke Xavier and Evan shared. She'd forgotten until now.

Pretending to focus on her crystal ball, Marina waited until the ancient professor nodded off to sleep as she often did. Then, she glanced over at Annie, who seemed to be genuinely focusing, and whispered, "What was so funny?"

Annie blinked a few times before whispering back, "Haven't the foggiest. Ask them after class."

So Marina did. She also asked them if they knew what was funny about "that's what she said." The boys eyed each other, smothering smiles, and asked for context.

"I don't even remember. It wasn't like they said anything out of the ordinary as far as I could tell. I think we were talking about schoolwork?" Quincy laughed, and Marina rolled her eyes. "What, does my ignorance amuse you?"

"You really don't get it?" Gideon asked.

"I'd also like to know," Annie said. She paused, and looked at Gideon another moment. "You need a haircut," she announced.

Gideon raised his hand to his hair and exchanged a look with Quincy. Suddenly, neither seemed especially keen on explaining the jokes. Quincy coughed, and his eyes darted away from the others, while Gideon ruffled his hair and looked down at his watch.

"Er—look at the time!" he exclaimed. "I promised Frank I'd meet him in the library during lunch! And—er—Quin's coming too!"

"Oh…" Marina was confused, annoyed, and a little offended. She watched the boys dash off in the opposite direction they had previously been heading in and rolled her eyes. Annie tsked beside her. "I guess we'll have to get our answers elsewhere."

"Lark has a lot of siblings," Annie said, "so maybe if it's a wizarding thing she'll have heard it from them."

On their way to lunch, Annie and Marina considered what in Merlin's name they could potentially be about to learn. By the time they arrived, they were still as clueless as ever and even more desperate for answers. Their curiosity and the suspense of not knowing was killing them. Somehow, they had been left out of a joke, and it was imperative that someone explain it to them.

"Lark, you have a lot of siblings," Annie stated as the girls sat down across from their roommates. "Do you know why the phrase 'that's what she said' is so funny?"

Lark froze in the middle of a bite of her sandwich, stunned for a beat, and then laughed. She laughed long enough for Marina to serve herself some pizza (thank Merlin she could get pizza at Hogwarts) and for Artemis to start staring back at the one or two Ravenclaws that were giving the girls weird looks. When Marina and Annie were still looking at Lark expectantly—and a little perturbedly—she stopped laughing.

"Wait," she said, eyes wide, "you really don't know?" Lark took another bite of her sandwich. "That's like one of the first dirty jokes you're supposed to learn!"

Marina blew out a sigh. "If we knew, we wouldn't be asking," she snapped.

"Boys think sex jokes are funnier than they actually are," Artemis said.

"That—what?"

"Merlin's saggy pants, you do know what sex is, right?" Lark asked, her eyebrows pulled upward in surprised concern as she looked between Marina and Annie.

"Of course," Marina said.

"No…?" Annie said at the same time.

Lark, Artemis, and Marina paused to turn and look at Annie with varying levels of shock, awe, concern, and disbelief. A small silence fell around the girls before Lark broke it, her cheeks a little pink.

"Where did you think babies came from?" she asked quietly.

Annie flushed red. "I…don't know?" It was odd to see Annie suddenly reduced to hesitance. It reminded Marina of when her friend was worried about her relationship with her parents, and then a thought struck her.

"Did your parents refuse to tell you?" she asked.

"They might've if I had asked, but I never asked," Annie answered.

"Okay, this is not a conversation to have in the Great Hall," Lark decided. "We'll explain everything tonight, including the joke, I promise."

Lark did explain everything in their dorm room that night, perhaps too well. Marina, for her part, was glad she finally understood and could now be on her guard for future jokes of the same genre, but Annie was still stunned into silence the next morning. As promised to their Gryffindor friends, Annie and Marina got up early to go watch the Quidditch tryouts, but the blonde barely even said "good morning" to Marina. When they met Gideon and Quincy walking into the Great Hall for breakfast, Annie blushed and avoided all eye contact.

"Will you be alright?" Marina whispered as they started heading for the Gryffindor table.

Annie took a deep breath and nodded. "Yeah," she said, "I'm just, um…"

"Unintentionally imagining every boy in the room naked?"

"Yes."

"You'll get used to knowing what male bits are," Marina assured her. "I couldn't look Quincy in the face for days after my mum had the talk with me, but you're less shy than I am, so you'll get over it so quick you won't even realize."

The girls sat down so that Annie was between Marina and Becky Davies and they were across from Caroline Brown and Emmeline Vance. It seemed to help Annie a bit, sitting that way. Soon enough, Quincy and Gideon had yanked everyone into a discussion about Quidditch, professional Quidditch teams, the house teams, strategies, and all sorts of technicalities and terminologies that went right over Marina's head. She was okay with this. It was more fun to watch her friends so excited over a sport than to try and participate in the conversation.

"Marina, hi!" came a voice from behind her shoulder. She turned, and Peter Pettigrew and his friends were walking up to the table.

"Hey, Peter," she greeted. "How's second year going?"

"Good. I've been asking Remus for help, like you said last year."

Marina grinned. "Good!" She leaned a bit to one side to see around Peter. "Morning, Remus, James, Sirius."

"Marina, you're just the witch I wanted to see!" James exclaimed, pushing past Sirius to stand closer to the table. "I need advice and none of the girls in my year will help me without telling Lily."

"You need girl advice?" she guessed. Marina noticed Remus and Sirius had already claimed spots at the table and were waiting for their friends. She also noticed that her eggs were likely going cold. Eggs cooled quickly. "Why don't we talk during tryouts? You're going, yeah?"

James pushed his glasses farther up his nose. "Uh, Sirius and I are going, but I think Remus and Peter wanted to stay behind and work on this essay we have due for Herbology," he said.

Marina briefly wondered why James and Sirius weren't also going to work on their Herbology essays, but she let it slide. "I'll talk to you later, then."

"Okay, thanks!" And he scurried off down the table with Peter.

Like the previous year, Annie and Marina ate, drank, and were merry with the Gryffindors until the Quidditch captain (last year's captain had been replaced, Marina noticed) rose and headed for the huge doors with the rest of the team. Annie chatted with Quincy as she wound her blue and gray scarf around her neck in preparation for the chilly October morning air, which was good because if she were still stupefied by last night's discussion then she wouldn't have been able to get any words out at all. In one big pack of scarlet and gold and a tidbit of blue, the Gryffindors and friends were off to the Quidditch pitch.

Just as Marina was regretting her decision to forget her gloves in her trunk, she was pounced on by twelve-year-olds. "So as I was saying," James began, and then he launched into a whole story about how Lily, who he had decided was the love of his life over summer, hated him, ignored him, etc., and how all he had done was this and that, and all he had said was such and such, and all he had called her was so and so, and how now he was convinced he was going to die alone and miserable and Lily would surely die happy and in love with her soulmate, whoever that would be, and how he hoped that soulmate certainly wasn't Snivellus, the kid she always hung around with, and how just the other day he had tried to talk to this Snivellus boy (Marina was fairly certain his real name was not Snivellus) had taken whatever he had said as a deep offense, even though all he had said was this and that, and all he had called him was so and so, and all he had suggested was such and such...

Marina began to stop listening to James ramble on and on, since letting him ramble on seemed to be all he intended to do for the foreseeable future. By now they had reached the Quidditch pitch, Annie was deep in conversation with Caroline, and Quincy and Gideon had already broken iff from the spectators to await their chance to try their luck and show off for the team captain. Sirius, James, and Marina climbed the wooden stairs that seemed like they should be quite rickety but never were, and found a decent seat a little removed from the whole crowd of supporting fans. All the while, James blabbered on. They sat with Marina between the two boys, so she leaned a little to her right, towards Sirius.

"How many hours a day does he go on like this?" she asked, voice hushed.

"Constantly, the bloody sap," came his reply.

"I'm shocked he's still going."

"The sheer volume of his foppery is astonishing."

Sirius struck Marina as an oddly old-fashioned boy, though she didn't have very much to go on. Out of all the four Gryffindor second years, she talked to James the most—or, he talked to her—Peter the second most, and Sirius a whole lot less. She talked to Remus even less than she talked to Sirius, in fact. But no matter what, Sirius always smoothly used little turns of phrase that Marina felt had a stuffier air to them, like they'd been pulled out of an 80-year-old hatbox. From what she could gather from Artemis and Lark, the ancient stuffiness was common quirk of the old pureblood families, and Marina extrapolated that even though Sirius acted like he had completely cut himself off from his past, it was still his past, and since his entire family likely talked like upper-crust Victorian socialites, so must Sirius, even if he didn't notice it. Marina often heard a little of the same in James too, though it was certainly a more modernized antique patois.

Mentally patting herself on the back for remembering the word "patois," Marina tried to jump back into James's stream of consciousness, and gathered that he was now talking at length about his plans to win Lily over. She decided it was high time to cut in.

"Alright, slow down," she interrupted. "What exactly are you asking me?"

James ruffled his hair absently. His pink hand made Marina think of her nearly numb fingers in her lap. "How do I get a girl to like me, I suppose."

"Godric's sake, just get over her!" burst Sirius. "She's only a girl. And we're only in second year, as well!"

"'Only a girl?!' Why, she's the most exquisite girl I've ever met!"

Marina rolled her eyes. "You're twelve. Get over yourself. Wait until you're a little older to start planning your future together, alright? And maybe just tone your devotion down a little. You come on quite strong," she said.

"But won't that make it easier for her to ignore me?" James asked, clearly puzzled beyond belief.

Mouth open to reply, Marina froze as a scream ripped through the air across the Quidditch pitch. It was quite high, and cracked and squeaked a little, but it was a scream nonetheless, and it was much too familiar. She looked out into the pitch and could've sworn her heart stopped as she watched Quincy hit the ground.


	10. Chapter 10

**AN: So this chapter was really hard for me to get into. I think I started and restarted it at least four times. It's also not my best work, I don't think, and it doesn't do a whole lot to further the plot, except for a couple parts, but...this is what came to me. It's a little weak, is all. I warn you, I edited not one lick of this, so please excuse any little mistakes. Yeah. Idk guys I'm trying. School is keeping me busy and exhausting my creative capacity: in literature we're finishing up a whole unit on philosophy and holy shit guys it's taking up a lot of my energy. Hopefully the next chapter will be better-I have bigger plans for it anyway. This was kinda supposed to be a Big Plot Chapter but it just didn't work out that way, you know how it is.**

Marina never liked the Hospital Wing, and she was sure she never would. Despite the high ceiling and tall windows, it felt constraining, like Marina was being too closely observed. Perhaps there was some charm cast around the chamber that did keep an eye on the students stuck in the too-firm beds. Not to mention the smell of the Hospital Wing—Marina wasn't fond of the sharp smell all healing potions seemed to give off, and the place was full of healing potions. And Madam Pomfrey annoyed Marina, to top it off. Once last year Annie slipped on the wet stone steps out in the courtyard and broke her scapula and got a concussion, so Marina and Lark walked her to the Hospital Wing, where Madam Pomfrey promptly took Annie and kicked the other two girls out. They didn't get to see her for days afterward.

Despite all that, she walked right in through the open double doors. Quincy was her friend, and by Merlin's beard, she was going to visit him. Surely after three days he would be allowed visitors. Marina tried not to gag at the acrid air as she scanned the rows of beds, searching for the dark blot of Quincy against all the white sheets. Instead, the back of Gideon's ginger head caught her attention, and as he blocked her view of the person he was visiting, she stepped over to find out. It was probably Quincy.

He turned when he heard her shoes against the tile floor. "Hey," he called in greeting. "Quin's sleeping. He was awake earlier; sorry you missed him."

"That's alright," Marina said, going around to the other side of her friend's bed, opposite Gideon. She sat in the conveniently located metal chair. "Have you been here since your last class?" It was after dinner now, but Gideon seemed like he'd been settled in these uncomfortable chairs for a long time. He nodded in reply. "You skipped dinner?" she asked, raising her eyebrows. "Did you eat lunch?"

"I scarfed down something quick before coming here, yeah. Was dinner good?"

Marina crossed her arms. "You can't just skip dinner."

Gideon flapped his hand at her. "I'll grab something from the kitchens later," he assured her, an unconcerned tone to his voice as if it was no big deal that he just knew where the kitchens were.

She gaped at him. "How do you know where the kitchens are?" she hissed. "I thought that was supposed to be a secret!"

"Nothing stays a secret for very long if you listen to the Hufflepuffs talking amongst themselves enough. Not only is Hufflepuff House right near the kitchens in the basement, but they also share the passwords between them for absolutely everything: kitchens, prefects' bathroom—"

Marina was aghast, so she cut him off in the middle of listing all the secrets the castle had to offer that the Hufflepuffs apparently all knew about. "You can't just eavesdrop! Where's the fun in that? If you're going to figure out how everything works, figure it out for yourself." She frowned. "And anyway, isn't it sort of against the nature of a Gryffindor to just…steal other people's secrets like that?"

Gideon shrugged. "They're all technically communal spaces," he said. "It's not like I'm going to invade specifically Hufflepuff spaces or anything. The kitchens are open to all houses if they know how to get into them."

Well, she supposed that made sense. Still, she would've rather discovered it all for herself than eavesdrop and take advantage of what the Hufflepuffs knew. Where was the fun in that? Half the excitement of a secret was discovering it. Maybe she should be exploring the castle more often, if it had so many hidden rooms and features, or maybe she should actually read the giant _Hogwarts: a History_ tome she had thought about picking up more than a few times. It had seemed like such a boring read before, but now Marina figured it might be worth it. As Quincy probably wouldn't wake up anytime soon, Marina wished Gideon a good evening and started the trek all the way up to Ravenclaw Tower.

She should work on her homework, probably. Flitwick had assigned a large chunk of reading, and there was alway History of Magic to teach herself. However, the fact that Hogwarts itself was an untapped source of adventure stuck in the forefront of Marina's mind, and she thought it would be worthwhile to mention it to Lark and Artemis; they probably knew more than she did about exploring the castle. In all likelihood, Lark's older siblings had already told her everything she could ever want to know. As soon as she pushed open the door to the common room, however, both Hogwarts and homework flew from her mind. Merlin, Alfred was snogging one of the older girls, right in the middle of the room in plain sight. She almost gagged.

When she was a kid and her mum drove her into London for something she had long forgotten, traffic into the city was exceptionally bad for some reason. As they slowly crept forward in the car, Marina spied police lights flashing ahead. Gradually, traffic trickled through the single open lane, directed by a policeman with a grim face, and Marina stared out the window at a three-car accident, the worst she had ever seen. Despite the gruesome sight of crumpled metal, smoke, and red flecked on the white car in the middle of it, she found she couldn't look away.

Watching Alfred engage in the most disgusting display of public affection she had seen yet at the school was like watching that car crash. She couldn't look away, even as she edged around the common room to where she had spied her friends sitting in their usual study nook. They were similarly horrified and transfixed.

"I did not need this today," Lark commented when Marina joined them. "All I was trying to do was work on my essay in peace."

"How did Alfred even manage to catch her interest?" Annie wondered aloud. "He's so terrible."

"Her boyfriend went to Hogsmeade with another girl," Artemis said.

Oh, yes, the Hogsmeade weekends. Another privilege of being a third year were the monthly excursions to the village just outside the school grounds. Marina hadn't gone in September, and she wasn't sure if she wanted to go this month either. Apparently they caused more drama than they were worth, especially if said drama at all involved Alfred Smith.

"I am absolutely dumbstruck," Lark said. "I want to know why Smith, specifically, but I also have no desire to know why Smith, specifically." She blew out a sigh and began packing her books up. "I'm going to the library," she said, standing and averting her eyes to the common room door.

In her dramatic way, Lark strode across the room, nose turned up. Artemis closed her eyes for a moment in a soft sigh before gathering her parchment and ink and following the other girl out of Ravenclaw Tower. With a cringe, Annie looked to Marina.

"We could go to the dormitory," she suggested.

It was then that Marina had a brilliant idea. "Would you like to explore the castle with me?"

Annie blinked at her. "Are we allowed? I don't want to get in trouble. They write home to your parents, you know."

"Do they?" Marina asked. She'd never been in trouble before that she knew of. Well, actually, there was that one time last year when she missed a step in Potions and blew up her cauldron and the debris fell into Annie's cauldron and blew it up too and Slughorn took ten points for "unreasonable damage," but Marina didn't count that, nor the small handful of times professors took points for catching her chatting in class.

"That's what I heard, anyway," Annie shrugged. "Maybe it's only for serious infractions or detentions or something."

"Well, I doubt they'll give us a detention for walking around before curfew. It'll only be a problem if we stay out too late," Marina reasoned. She blew her growing curls out of her eyes and turned to head back the way she came.

Annie quickly gathered what she was working on into her bag and trotted after Marina. Maia came too, woken from where she was sleeping amongst the girls by Marina's arrival. The trio ducked out of the common room and onto the landing in the hall, sparing only a small habitual glance at the lost-and-fountain (the clever nickname for the veritable mountain of lost items that Annie thought up), and then exited Ravenclaw Tower.

"So, where to?"

"The basement," Marina decided. "Gideon said the kitchens and Hufflepuff House are down there."

"When did you talk to Gideon? I didn't see him at dinner. Was he in the Hospital Wing when you went?"

Marina nodded. "He said he'd eat in the kitchens later, and I asked how he knew where they were, and he said if you listen to Hufflepuffs talk, you can learn a lot of things about the castle." She rolled her eyes, adding, "I'd rather not get my information from eavesdropping, but it's a starting place at any rate."

The girls—and cat—began heading in the direction of the Grand Staircase. "That's too easy," Annie said, shaking her head. "What about if we start at the top and work down, rather than down and then up? That way we know something for sure is waiting at the end, and we can find things without Gideon's cheating."

"He said he wasn't cheating," Marina said. They paused at a landing before going either up or down. "He said they're secrets that belong to everyone, since the kitchens are open to all the houses. And he didn't tell me the password, anyway, only that they're in the basement."

With a sigh, presumably because of Gideon, Annie gazed down over the railing. "The seventh floor is closer," she said, "and I just realized I don't feel like walking down all those stairs at this hour."

"When does anyone ever feel like walking up and down all these stairs?" Marina quipped, grinning as they began their ascent.

A painting on the wall snorted a few steps ahead of them. The ornately robed wizard in it looked down his nose at the explorers. "I've heard generations of students complaining about these stairs, and yet nary a single one has done a single thing about them."

"What do you mean?" Annie asked, pausing to face the portrait.

The wizard raised one eyebrow. "Blow them to smithereens and fly your brooms to class, is what I mean. Charm them all into chutes and ladders, if you'd like. One bright young boy once asked about something called an elevator, and if it does as its name implies, it would most certainly be an improvement."

"You know, I've never thought about changing the stairs," Marina mused. "They'd make more sense if they moved less, that's for sure."

"Exactly," the wizard said, his painted lips pulling into a smirk. "But that damned Ravenclaw woman—"

"Now, you stop right this moment!" cried the portly witch in the painting next to the wizard. "These here're Rowena's children, and I won't have you blaspheming her name within their hearing!"

"By Godric's teeth, you blithering dolt!" the wizard shouted. "I have watched far too many good students herded into the wrong corridor thanks to Rowena's architectural quirks, and all I desire is that some student with enough of Gryffindor's strong gut come to the conclusion—"

"You can't explode the castle! It's history!" the witch screeched. "How many times do I have to tell you—"

"And how many times do I have to tell you—" he screamed back, cut off quickly again by the witch's nasally voice.

Annie, Marina, and Maia, meanwhile, slowly crept up the stairs and away from the two portraits. By the time they made it to the seventh floor landing, the two figures were still arguing, and other paintings and the few students still out and about were grumbling and scolding and yelling for them to quiet down. Giggling at the ruckus, the girls—and cat, who was not giggling—started down the corridor, keeping their eyes open. Marina wasn't really sure what she was looking for, but she hoped they would stumble across something magnificent by accident.

The seventh floor, both left and right corridors, was a quite desolate place besides a few paintings and tapestries, with no classes taught there—Marina wasn't sure there were even any classrooms. Being in the left corridor, there wasn't much to look at even in the way of paintings. It was drafty, a little dark at this late in the evening, and looked too empty to hide many secrets. Not a single student or teacher or even ghost was in sight. Aside from a rather ugly tapestry of a clearly insane wizard trying to teach a few trolls to dance ballet, Annie and Marina called their seventh floor corridor expedition a flop, at least on the left side of the castle. When the faint chimes of the giant clock tower rang out 9:30, the girls decided they should probably be doing their homework instead of poking around in deserted corridors half an hour before curfew.

"Do you think Alfred's finished kissing that girl?" Annie asked as they trudged down the stairs past the sixth floor landing and to the fifth. She shuddered. "I don't think I'll ever be able to forget seeing that."

Marina hummed. "I hope so. Merlin, it makes me want to be sick just thinking about it."

To avoid any chance of further scarring, the girls skipped the common room and instead headed straight up to their dormitory. Despite never really being able to tell which tower is Ravenclaw Tower from outside the castle, Marina was pretty sure that by now she had the basic construction figured out. The common room itself was at the top of the tower, with its gorgeous high ceilings and tall windows. The little landing with the lost-and-fountain was like the central hub of Ravenclaw, allowing students to skip the common room entirely should they wish to, as two sets of stairs led off in either direction to the boys' and girls' dormitory towers, the girls' being to the right if you've just walked in from the rest of the castle. From inside the common room, the dormitory towers could be accessed by staircases behind a large statue of Rowena Ravenclaw. Somehow the staircases wrapped around the dormitory towers to allow access to all the rooms and the bathroom at the very bottom. It was quite nice to be able to avoid the common room, especially when one Alfred Smith may be within it, even if the outer staircases were quite cold in the winter.

After that night, Marina and Annie had little chance to go exploring again. Quincy was finally as conscious as a normal person was, and the girls spent the rest of the week visiting with him and catching him up on schoolwork in the Hospital Wing. Marina even began to tolerate the potent healing potion smell. Her tutoring took up an increasing portion of her attention, as well: Randy the second year Slytherin had sought Marina out in the hall after lunch, coming as close as she thought a Slytherin could to begging for her help with an essay he needed to turn in the next day. That was in addition to the hour she spent with him usually, and she pondered over how to get Levi interested in doing his work for Charms at least twice each day. Simply put, Marina was busy. Once Quincy was back on his feet and in class, a lot of her stress lifted off her shoulders, but she still had to make time to see and think about three students and her own core classes and her electives. Not to mention how Evan kept crowding into her headspace when she was trying to concentrate. He certainly made everything worse.

At the end of the month, the October Hogsmeade weekend had the student body all excited, and Marina was both relieved and oddly disappointed when Lark whispered a rumor that Evan planned to ask Emmeline Vance on a date to Hogsmeade. The Saturday before Halloween saw Annie rousing Marina bright and early, despite her requests—expressed quite clearly the night before—to sleep in alone.

Marina dragged open her eyes to meet Annie's pretty blue and very awake ones as best as she could. "Are you sure you don't want to come to Hogsmeade with us?" Annie asked quietly. Lark was still snoring. "I'm not going to share my sugar quills this time. You've got to buy your own if you want any."

Marina scowled at her friend for a long moment, while said friend smiled sweetly back. With a dramatic—but not too loud—sigh, Marina wrenched herself upright, pushing her wild hair out of her face. "You've convinced me," she grouched, and yanked a pair of sweatpants over her pajama shorts to brave the frigid stairway for her morning shower.

Hogsmeade turned out to be more fun than Marina expected, especially with Quincy and Gideon available to joke and tease and make willing fools of themselves. They got Butterbeers in the Three Broomsticks, though no tables were free and they had to stand at the bar, and Marina bought plenty of sugar quills, peppermint toads, and cauldron cakes to last until next month. At the end of the day, they walked home in high spirits, arriving back at the castle in time for dinner.

—

When the chill of December started to creep and settle into all the nooks and crannies of the castle, Marina realized her Transfiguration abilities were dropping with the temperature. Once again, she was stuck. The Draconifors spell shouldn't be so difficult, really; in fact it was hardly different from the Lapifors spell, which Marina had mostly mastered with less difficulty. She was inclined to give up, especially since McGonagall would be testing them over their practical mastery of it within a matter of days.

"Alright, let's see what you've got so far," Gideon said, pushing a quill of his across the library table. He had once again offered to help Marina to the best of his ability. So had Quincy, but he and Annie had gone off to look for a book they'd need for a History essay some time ago and hadn't returned yet.

Marina took a deep breath and eyed the quill. The nib was snapped, and the plume was a little ragged. She tried to imagine it becoming a dragon the way it was supposed to and pointed her wand. "Draconifors," she said, trying to sound convincing.

With a few sparks, the quill sprouted scales, but was certainly still a quill. The aggravated huff Marina let out ruffled both her own notes, Gideon's notes, and Artemis's notes, all of which were spread out across the table. Gideon sighed a gentler sigh and motioned with his wand and muttered the counterspell to rid the quill of its scales. Marina watched, tempted to put her head down and consider her Runes translation homework instead.

"You can turn this ink pot into a rabbit, can't you?" Gideon asked, producing a half-empty pot of ink and thunking it down on the table. He raised one eyebrow: a challenge.

Marina frowned and ran her fingers over the twisted end of her wand. "I told you I could. What I can't do is Draconifors."

"Let's see it then."

With some concentration, Marina transfigured the ink pot into a small white- and black-furred rabbit. As Gideon tried to explain that turning a quill into a dragon is no different than turning an ink pot into a rabbit, she watched the little animal hop about on the table. It was quite adorable, a miniature bunny with its bottom half all black, as if it were half-full of ink, just like the ink pot it used to be. Why couldn't she do that but with dragons?

It wasn't for lack of effort, or at least Marina thought it wasn't. She wanted to transfigure things into dragons just as much as she wanted to transfigure things into rabbits. And she knew how the spell was supposed to work—she'd done the calculations and studied the theory and understood the mechanics—she just couldn't actually make it work. Again. So where was the problem? She was doing everything just the way she was supposed to.

Maybe therein lay the problem: Marina wasn't putting herself into the spell, was she? With the rabbit, she was easily able to imagine a cute little bunny about the size of an ink pot hopping on the table, and then there was the rabbit. Now that she thought of it, her most successful transfigurations, to her recollection, were the ones she brought her own imagination to. Professor McGonagall liked to say that transfiguration magic was scientific, concrete, and left no wiggle room for individual flair, unlike charm work. But just because Marina was visualizing something didn't mean she was incorporating a personal style, did it? And after all, there was no set way for a rat to become a goblet; there were many kinds of goblets, and often no student would produce a goblet identical to someone else's. It must be the same with all transfiguring spells, right?

The problem may simply be that Marina couldn't easily imagine a viable dragon; she had never seen a real dragon and didn't know very much about them.

"Mina!" Fingers snapping in her face brought her out of her thoughts, and Marina looked up to see that Annie and Quincy had returned. "Mina, it's late, and Gideon said you've been forlornly staring a hole into the table for a while," Annie said.

"Oh. What time is it?" Marina asked, stretching her arm out from its previous position of holding her chin up.

Gideon shook his sleeve up and checked his watch. "About 9:40," he said. "I'm sorry we didn't get very far, Min."

Marina shrugged and gathered the various sets of notes covering the table. "It's alright. I think I figured out something to try next time, so it wasn't a total loss."

They talked about the upcoming Quidditch game and the most recent odd Divination class happening on their way out of the library before parting ways at the fifth floor landing. Annie and Marina bid the boys a good night before starting down the corridor that would lead them to Ravenclaw Tower. A painting warned them of the time as they passed; he was a kind but stern wizard decked out in the finest Baroque style, with his pocket watch always in hand.

"What did you think of to try?" Annie asked when they reached the girls' dorm. "It must be something good since you sat there lost in thought for such a long time."

"Well, I just realized that all the times I transfigure something well, I visualize the end product clearly in my head. Even though Professor McGonagall says that transfiguration doesn't have room for flounce and style, I think it helps to be able to picture it while you're casting the spell," Marina explained, bending down to pick up her pajamas off the floor next to her bed. "My problem with the dragon one is that I'm not picturing a clear-enough dragon. That's my hypothesis, anyway."

After classes the next day, Marina did test her hypothesis, and she was right. It did help to imagine a dragon as real as she could imagine one. The empty sugar quill box she practiced on did become a dragon, mostly, though it lacked proper teeth and claws. McGonagall assured her even later that her mastery of the spell was not perfect, but it was good enough, and good enough for McGonagall was more than good enough for Marina when it came to Transfiguration.

Despite her good luck with her most difficult class, Marina welcomed the Christmas holiday. Even though Professor Sprout assigned a section of textbook reading, Professor Sigma assigned three numerology charts, and Professor Traduce asked them to practice putting sentences together in ancient runes, Marina was looking forward to the break. After all, time away from Hogwarts meant time away from Alfred Smith and his weird girl drama.

From what Marina could understand from what Lark could understand, a fifth year's sixth year boyfriend-since-last-year went to Hogsmeade with a seventh year girl behind the fifth year girl's back while she was sick with the flu in the Hospital Wing in September. In retaliation, the fifth year girl (Marina thought her name was Ella or something) grabbed the nearest bloke in the common room that wasn't still prepubescent, which happened to be Alfred, and started snogging the daylights out of him. This was in early October. Since then, the fifth year girl (Ellie? Anna? Allie?) had been stringing Alfred along, using him to make her now-ex-boyfriend jealous so that the ex-boyfriend would come crawling back. The only problem was that the ex-boyfriend was now the boyfriend of the seventh year girl he went to Hogsmeade with as of late November. He was ignoring his ex-girlfriend, who was pretending to ignore him by snogging Alfred. Just before everyone left for holiday, Alfred asked the fifth year what their relationship really was, according to Lark, and the girl had just walked away without a proper answer. It all made Marina's head spin. How ridiculous could people really be? And these were Ravenclaws. Here Marina thought her house was supposed to be full of clever, wise people, but apparently not everyone was equally clever and wise in all areas of life.

Marina and Annie relayed all of this to Gideon and Quincy on the train home, to which the boys both reacted in a slightly horrified manner.

"Worse than the soap operas my grandmum watches, that is," Quincy said, shaking his head.

Gideon made a face and turned to Quincy. "Why would anyone watch an opera about soap?"

"It's a muggle form of entertainment," Annie said. "Soap operas are overly dramatic dramas that some muggles watch on the telly when they haven't got anything more interesting going on in their lives."

"Oh."

Gideon looked very marginally bewildered for the remainder of the train ride, and Marina caught him mouthing something that she thought might be "soap opera" to himself at least twice. When they pulled into the station, though, both real and fictitious drama were forgotten in favor of gathering treat wrappers and Maia and school bags and luggage. In the crowds on the platform, it was difficult to find almost anyone, but Gideon broke off first when he saw tall Fabian's red hair just above the other heads. That left the Jacksons and the Stewart-Lautrecs to find; one of Annie's parents would probably be waiting outside the platform.

When they did find their parents, Marina was surprised to see how very large her mum was. She didn't know why she was so surprised—after all, she was almost eight months pregnant. Still. It was…different. Annie's dad was once again sat on a bench outside of the magical platform, and he and Annie went off without more than a couple words exchanged between father and daughter. That worried Marina somewhat. Annie surely would be in poor spirits all holiday if her family wasn't going to talk to her. She rode home with Maia on her lap, thinking about her friend's troubles.

"Oh, darling, when we get home," her mum said, turning her head to talk to Marina in the backseat, "you'll have to excuse the mess. We're in the middle of transforming spare room into a nursery, and I'm afraid we've got boxes for storage all in the living room."

There certainly were boxes for storage in the living room. Marina peeked into a few to find the various pieces of dismantled furniture and decor all packed up with newspapers. It looked as if her parents were completely redecorating the whole room; even the curtains were folded into one of the boxes.

"Normally, we would shrink the furniture for packing," her papa said, coming into the house with Marina's trunk. "For long storage, it's safer to pack without shrinking charms so that there are no disasters if the charms do not last."

Marina nodded. "That makes sense." She sort of remembered Bobbie shrinking furniture when they moved into their current house from the small flat she and her mum lived in when Marina was very young.

Quincy came over only a day into the holiday, and he lounged on Marina's bed while she sat with Maia on her floor. "It'll be strange, having a baby in your house, won't it?" he asked.

"I don't know," she answered. "I don't know very much about babies and houses."

"My aunt had another baby while we were in school and my mum said they're coming to visit for Christmas. That makes three cousins on my mum's side, and I'm older than the oldest one by ten years."

"You'll have to tell me how that goes," Marina said.

Quincy shrugged. "It won't be so bad. They're only staying for three days. You've got to live with yours for years."

Marina rolled her eyes, stroking the length of Maia's spine and down her tail. "It won't be a baby forever," she said. "And we go away for school, so I only have to live with a baby over holidays. So really, I've only got to live with a baby for…" She paused to do a bit of mental math. "Six months of summer holidays, and about a month of Christmas and Easter holidays."

"Well, that's true," Quincy conceded. He shifted to lay on his stomach. "Do your parents know if it's a boy or a girl?"

"How would they know?"

"My mum told me once that muggles have a test for that sort of thing. They have this machine thing that can look through a mum's skin and organs and stuff to see the baby, and they can find out things like if it's growing right and if it's a boy or a girl. I expect healers have a spell or something that does the same thing."

"Oh." Marina made a face. "That sounds like something you can only do with magic. How in Merlin's name can muggles do that?"

"Maybe we'll talk about it in Muggle Studies. If we do, I'll let you know."

Christmas passed without incident, and Marina got double presents to celebrate her birthday and the holiday. Quincy reported back that babies are a right pain. They cry all night and day and smell terribly if their diaper isn't fresh and throw up the food they just ate all down your back when you try to burp them. But his new cousin was cute enough to make up for it sometimes, he said, especially when his aunt dressed her up with bows in her hair. Marina decided a baby's cuteness couldn't possibly outweigh the horror of vomit and poo and screaming. Nevertheless, in an effort to not make too rash of a judgement on her future sibling, Marina resolved to at least ask if her parents did know if she should expect either a brother or sister and what this kid's name would be.

Her mum smiled when Marina asked. "Your little brother's name is going to be Charles—"

"Michel!" her papa shouted from another room, perhaps from upstairs.

"We can't quite decide," Bobbie said.

"Both children could have names that start with 'M!'" Theo shouted.

"Or both our children could have names with meaning!"

"'Michel' has plenty of meaning!"

"Marina is named for your family! Our son should be named for my family!"

"But 'Michel' sounds better with Marina than 'Charles!'"

This was a debate Marina decided to stay out of, so she retreated to her room to work on her Arithmancy assignment, rolling her eyes as she went. Michel or Charles, what difference did it make? At least she knew she'd be getting a brother, even if his name was still to be determined.


	11. Chapter 11

AN: So it's been some time, more than it should have been. Sorry, school had me really busy for a while there. Thankfully, I only have like 27 more days of school, not counting weekends, until I can be finished with high school forever-but who's counting?

Remember how last chapter was supposed to be a Big Plot Chapter but it just didn't make it there? Well, here's the Big Plot Chapter, finally! Yup, we're started to reeeeeaaaaally get into the transfiguration-y-ness of Mina's story here. We're also seeing development with Annie, and we're gonna get a little hint at some more plot development that I haven't actually figured out yet at the very end. Sorry it's a little short, but a lot happens.

I'd like to give a shout out to my friend lillylivered for keeping me motivated to write and for reassuring me that I'm actually getting what I want across to readers. She's only got a few things, and only one of them is about Harry Potter, but she's a good writer, and you should go give her some love!

Marina frowned as she neared the back of the train, carefully holding Maia close to her chest with one arm and dragging her trunk along behind her with the other. Usually, Annie arrived early to the station and caught a compartment before they were all taken, but Marina had walked the length of the Express twice now and her friend was nowhere to be found. She wasn't any earlier than usual, and Annie hadn't said anything odd in her letters over the holiday...

"Hey, Min," Gideon said from behind her. Marina felt the weight of her trunk lift, and she turned around to see her friend had picked up the other side, despite toting his own luggage. "Have you seen Quincy yet?"

Marina shook her head. "I haven't found Annie yet either," she said, "and she's usually one of the first people on the train."

Gideon's wide mouth puckered to one side in a funny sort of frown Marina had seen him make on multiple occasions. "Well, let's snag a compartment before they all fill up. You know how Quin is," he said, starting to walk towards the less crowded front of the Express. "He'll turn up. I'm sure Annie'll get here too."

"She could just be running late," Marina mused, following Gideon into an empty compartment. Maia was beginning to squirm. "That's not very like her, though. She's early for everything."

"Happens to the best of us."

She and Gideon lifted their trunks up to the luggage racks and sat down across from each other. Maia rubbed her cheek against Marina's hand a few times before hopping off her lap and nosing around the compartment. For a while, they talked about how their holidays had gone and Gideon told her about his nephew, Billy, who was now old enough to walk around pretty effectively and becoming too adventurous for his own good. Marina tried to pay attention, she really did, but her mind kept wandering to Annie, flying through "what if" after "what if" and slipping deeper and deeper into her own thoughts about where her friend could possibly be that she didn't even notice when Quincy entered the compartment. He must've walked in at some point, because Marina was shaken from her thoughts by a knit hat to the face, making her jump and smack her elbow on the edge of the window. She looked up and frowned, glancing between the two boys.

Quincy snorted—he must've been the one to throw it—and asked, "What's got you thinking so hard?"

"Annie's not here yet."

"Uh, I did notice that," Quincy said in a thanks-Captain-Obvious sort of tone.

Marina rolled her eyes at his response. "I'm worried. She's usually here before any of us."

Gideon looked at his watch. "The train won't leave for another ten minutes or so," he said. "That's enough time for her to still show up. Don't worry," he continued, dropping his wrist back to his side and shooting Marina a comforting smile, "she wouldn't miss coming back to school for anything, I'll bet."

For seven agonizing minutes that seemed to stretch out over an eternity, Marina stared out the compartment window at the platform while Gideon brought Quincy up to speed on his nephew. She thought she heard him mention how his sister's husband had a weird obsession with muggle objects and had raved about rubber ducks for a solid hour and fifteen minutes, but perhaps she was mistaken. Rubber ducks were an odd topic to rave about for so long. Quincy in turn began telling Gideon about his own experience with extremely young family over the holiday, but Marina tuned him out; he'd already told her about it. Instead of listening, she watched the crowds on the platform dwindle as students boarded the train and parents either stepped out of the way or left for home. Her attention was drawn to one family for no particular reason; a mum hugged her son tight—he must've been a first or second year, because he didn't look very familiar at all—while he squirmed, until he finally squirmed away from her only to have his curly hair ruffled by his dad. His owl suddenly beat its wings in its cage, and he jumped away to fuss over the bird for a moment before taking his luggage, waving a final "goodbye" to his parents, and heading for the train. Marina followed him as he neared the edge of the platform, until suddenly a blonde blur interrupted her view of the boy.

Finally, it was Annie! Or at least she hoped it was Annie. Marina drew back from the window to watch the corridor—there she was; she made it. Marina hopped up to open the compartment door, and Annie, panting, ducked inside. The corner of her trunk caught the edge of the door, though, and Annie huffed, pushed her glasses up her nose, and yanked, leveraging her body weight, of which there was very little, to pull it free. Marina moved the door, releasing Annie's trunk with a soft noise of some sort, she expected, though whatever noise the trunk made was out-noised by the sound of Annie squeaking and falling further into the compartment. Quincy happened to be closest. To save her from sprawling on the floor in a heap, he dove forward to catch her, but Gideon also had moved at the same time with the same end. Gideon somehow tripped or knocked into Quincy, and Annie was still falling, and Gideon tripped over his own feet—Marina saw that part specifically—and with a "bloody hell" they all ended up on the floor in a pile together. Marina snorted out a sharp laugh and slid the compartment door shut.

All of this happened very quickly, in a matter of seconds. No one in the pile moved for a moment, until Maia jumped on top and started kneading her paws on Gideon's shoulder. He moved sharply, probably because Maia was kneading sharply, and Annie yelped, and then Quincy grunted. Marina rolled her eyes at the chain reaction of jostling and reached across Gideon's long legs to lift her cat away. Then the ginger carefully hopped up, and then Annie carefully rolled off Quincy, and then Quincy stood up, flushing red.

Once everyone was finally settled into proper seats and Annie's trunk was stowed away and Quincy could look Annie properly in the face again, Marina asked her friend, "What took you so long?"

Annie winced and looked down at her hands, clasped in her lap. Maybe Marina had phrased her question a little insensitively; Annie didn't answer right away, and instead picked at a loose bit of skin around the edge of her nail. Hesitance like this, Marina suddenly remembered, happened because of her parents. What could have happened this time?

"I'll tell you later," Annie said quietly. She took a breath and perked up into the Annie everyone was quite familiar with, then, and grinned. "How were all of your holidays?" she asked.

The whistle sounded, and the train lurched forward, beginning the journey to Hogwarts. As everyone ran through their holiday stories again, Marina wondered why Annie hadn't said anything and instead said that she'd talk about it later. When was later? Marina was worried, and she wanted to know what was wrong. Everyone laughed at a story Quincy was telling—he had a knack for telling things in a way to make everyone laugh. Annie, Marina noticed, laughed less than she usually did at Quincy's stories and had begun again to pick at the skin around her nails. She bit her lip when Gideon started talking once again about his nephew Billy, though she smiled and "aww"ed like she normally would. Yes, Marina was convinced something was very wrong. Never before had Annie been so bothered about something that she continued to be bothered after the boys showed up—…

That was it! That's why Annie had declined to talk about what had happened to detain her earlier: Quincy and Gideon were already in the compartment. Marina couldn't think of a time when Annie had spoken about her troubles with her family in front of the two Gryffindors, and she now doubted they even knew anything about it. Maybe Annie didn't want anyone to know. Did Annie even want Marina to know? What if Marina had been pushy with her questions and Annie gave in and told Marina though she didn't really want to? No, that couldn't be true; if Annie hadn't wanted to tell Marina, then she wouldn't have. Would she?

"—and that's why I'll never understand mothers," Gideon concluded, though Marina wasn't sure what he was concluding. Maybe she should actually listen to her friends more instead of getting lost inside her head like she always seemed to. "What about you, Annie? How was your holiday?"

"Oh, well, I—um—"

"Anything from the trolley?" the trolley witch called from the corridor.

Hurriedly, snack orders were taken, money was found and pooled, and Quincy stood to buy their sweets from the trolley witch. It only took a moment, but when he came back, laden with treats, Maia darted out of the compartment. The next half-hour was spent searching for the little Siamese, whom Annie found in an open compartment with a muggleborn and four other cats.

"Someone brought catnip on the train," Annie explained with a grin, scratching Maia behind the ears.

Talk of their holiday was dropped, though it still bothered Marina. She thought that Annie wouldn't like for her to ask about it until they were alone, though, so she kept quiet and listened to Quincy and Gideon try to explain some Quidditch technique, which they were doing very badly. As the rolling green landscape outside grew darker, the friends got down their luggage and took out robes to throw on over their street clothes. Marina noticed the hems on Quincy's robe were about an inch too short; had he had a growth spurt recently? Gideon noticed too and teased him about it, but then Quincy retorted with a quip about how Gideon had smacked his head on the headboard before the end of first semester because he was too tall.

"Oh, shut up," Gideon laughed. "You tripped over a table that one time, remember?"

Annie and Marina sat and laughed as the boys threw increasingly ridiculous examples of clumsiness at each other until the Express pulled into Hogsmeade Station. All the Christmas decorations had been taken down in the Great Hall, as they always were when everyone returned for the new semester, and Dumbledore ran through his usual exams-are-on-this-date-this-year-and-don't-wander-into-the-forest announcements before Marina and Annie could start tucking into the turkey dinner on the long tables. Lark talked about her oldest sister's boyfriend over dinner, who she said had come to spend the holiday, which she apparently thought was weird and made the whole thing awkward. Marina snuck glances at Annie all through the meal, but she seemed to be perfectly fine.

It wasn't until the two girls were walking to Transfiguration together after lunch a few days later that Marina had a chance to properly ask about her holiday. "What happened? Did something go very wrong with your parents?" she asked, taking care to make her voice as gentle as she could.

Annie sighed. "It was a lot worse than it was over the summer, even," she said quietly. "My mum wouldn't even look at me; it was like I just wasn't there to her. My dad was alright—he's always nicer—but he still never engaged me himself. I asked my brother, since he eavesdrops on my parents a lot and gets away with it pretty well, and he said it's all down to magic because it's not right to do magic or believe in it for real when you're religious like my family is," she tried to explain. "I'm supposed to believe it's evil," Annie shrugged, "but I'm not practicing or interested in practicing dark arts. I guess my mum thinks I am. But I didn't choose magic," she continued, looking down at her hands. "It just started happening."

"I don't think anyone can choose to have magic or not," Marina supplied.

"My brother said my mum said something about—… Well, I won't get into it. I don't think I can explain it right. But I hated being at home all holiday. I felt like no one wanted me there except my brother and my littlest sister, but she's too young to understand magic anyway." Annie lifted her head to look at Marina, then. Her blue eyes were misty behind her glasses. "Mina, I don't want to go home for Easter or summer holiday, but I don't know where else I'd go."

They were just about to walk into McGonagall's classroom, so Marina couldn't answer, but she squeezed Annie's hand when they sat down and decided that she would help however she could. Transfiguration proved to be a good distraction, though, because today they were taking notes over a topic that had fascinated Marina since she was a child.

Self-transfiguration, as explained by McGonagall, was something extraordinarily difficult and would never be studied practically at the OWL level, and only marginally at the NEWT level. Though Marina understood this was likely for safety reasons, she was still disappointed. Maybe she would fail spectacularly as she usually did, but it sounded interesting, and she might like to try. Anyway, self-transfiguration meant either turning yourself into an inanimate object or a different animate one, and the most challenging part in both cases was being able to turn yourself back. Many wizards found inanimate self-transformation to be useful in some situations, the professor explained, but she emphasized with her stern voice and serious expression that it was never to be attempted alone as a beginner, and you couldn't even begin learning until you mastered nonverbal magic, or else you could never turn yourself back. Animate self-transfiguration was even trickier. McGonagall presented examples of famous cases where wizards had transfigured theirselves into an animal, hoping for the benefits of that animal's size or speed, but they usually lost all higher human reasoning and couldn't transfigure themselves back into a human. Marina thought for a moment of how horrible it would be to think you'd found a genius solution to some problem, only to have it backfire so spectacularly.

A student must've raised their hand because McGonagall paused and nodded somewhere behind Marina. "If you loose your mind, then why do some people train to become animaguses?" asked Toni Zabini.

"The plural form is animagi, Miss Zabini, and if you'll let me continue, you'll learn that an animagus transformation is not the same as simply transfiguring oneself into an animal. An animagus," Professor McGonagall continued, now addressing the whole class, "is a highly skilled wizard or witch who has learned to transform into an animal at will. One's animagus form is one constant animal, and is only discoverable on one's own in the process of learning the skill. It is quite different in the sense that the witch or wizard retains their mind in animagus form, and therefore has complete control while one who has simply transfigured oneself into an animal may lose control in the face of animal instinct."

Irving raised his hand. "Is it true that you're an animagus, yourself, Professor?"

Marina missed the professor's answer because she was suddenly distracted by Evan. His hair, she noticed, caught the light from the windows in the classroom particularly well today. Sitting a couple rows behind him, she had a wonderful vantage point for watching the back of his head. Certainly not for the first time that year, Marina wondered how it would feel if she were to run her fingers through his hair. It looked so soft, especially in the sunlight filtering through the old panes of glass in the windows—

When the toe of Annie's shoe connected with Marina's ankle, she looked up. Professor McGonagall was gone, and in her place was a stern-looking tabby cat with rectangular shapes around its eyes. Other students in the room were chattering in wonder, and then the cat leapt off of the professor's podium, becoming McGonagall again in the middle of the air.

With that demonstration stirring up the students, McGonagall could only get a few more important remarks about animagi and self-transfiguration in before the hour was up and class was over. Marina walked out with her mind reeling. Transfiguration had jogged her memory—her papa was an animagus! How could she have just forgotten? Something as amazing as that was sitting right under her nose all this time, and she couldn't believe she forgot about it! Well, really, if she thought about it, it could maybe perhaps be justified by the fact that her papa's form was a dolphin, so he rarely transformed. He had taught Marina to swim, though, on a holiday to southern France. That was back before her papa lived in England full-time, and her mum brought Marina to visit her paternal grandparents in France.

Wait, wasn't she forgetting something else? Marina fell into step with Annie as they headed towards the Defense hallway, thinking. What had she been talking about before Transfig? She frowned; this was frustrating—all she could think about was how cool it would be to learn the animagus transformation. Maybe later she could ask Professor McGonagall about where she could learn more, and she could send a letter to her papa too.

Annie had been quiet all through class, which wasn't very unusual, since she liked to pay attention and take notes and bring Marina back to Earth. Now, though, she was still quiet, while Marina had grown quite accustomed to her conversation between classes. Marina looked over at Annie, mouth open to ask if she was okay, when she suddenly remembered that no, Annie was not okay. That's what she had forgotten in her excitement over something new to learn—Marina had forgotten about Annie. She closed her mouth and looked down at her shoes, her stomach twisting into a knot. How could she have forgotten Annie, her second-closest friend in the whole world?

Determined to make up for forgetting, Marina settled into thinking over Annie's situation and what could be done. Personally getting involved with Mr. and Mrs. Brennan was out of the question, she figured, because she'd only briefly met Mr. Brennan, and there was no way they'd listen to a thir—no, a fourteen-year-old. What else could she do? She thought she was already offering Annie her full support, or at least, she was offering as much as Annie wanted to take. It was one thing to be pushy about asking questions, but it was another thing altogether to be pushy about giving someone advice they didn't ask for, so Marina tried to avoid doing that.

Unfortunately, her thoughts had to stop there. They'd arrived at Professor Raleigh's door, and Marina needed to keep her wits about her if she wanted to make it through class without being nearly jinxed.

—

With the resumption of school, there came the resumption of her tutoring sessions, even more serious now that exams were looming. Marina remembered when she had scoffed at her professors telling her to start studying early, and now here she was saying the same thing to the kids she tutored. Levi, especially, she was worried about: after the holiday, he seemed extra jittery, with an extra short attention span for all things class-related.

"I got a lute for Christmas," he told Marina as they sat down to discuss his homework. "I'm really excited to learn to play."

"Can you make time for doing your assignments when you're not practicing?" Marina asked, raising an eyebrow.

Levi colored, his many freckles standing out against his blush. "Well, I suppose I'll have to," he sighed, looking down at the cover of his Charms textbook in a way that convinced Marina he had already made plans to play music rather than work.

"You got all your work done over the holiday?"

"I did!" Levi perked up again and grinned. "I finished it all, and I didn't even leave anything for the last day, either."

"Fantastic," Marina praised. "Now, what have you been assigned already?"

And so went her Fridays with her fellow Ravenclaw. By late September, Marina could tell he didn't want help with learning material, since he was quite a brilliant boy, but he desperately needed help with his procrastination habit. There were plenty of things he'd rather be doing; last semester, he worked ahead in the Potions textbook, impressing Slughorn of course, but he fell far behind in almost every other class, and this semester it would be the lute, she expected. It helped to set him specific, step-by-step deadlines for larger projects, and she developed the habit of checking in on his day-to-day homework progress anytime she noticed him in the common room.

On this particular Friday, the last one of January, Marina had collected a number of books on transfiguration to look through while Levi worked on his homework. She was hunting for something very specific: the animagus transformation. After almost a week of this nagging urge to try it just to see if she could constantly in the back of her mind, she had decided to do something about it. Any good experiment began with research, of course, because one couldn't do anything if one didn't know what to do or where to start. Marina thought at first that she could owl her papa or ask McGonagall directly, but she wanted to try the thing by herself first.

The first book she'd grabbed had both an index and a glossary of terms, and as it was probably bigger than Marina's head it was unlikely there could be anything left out, but an examination of the index and glossary indicated not so much as a mention of animagi. The next book was more difficult to look through because it had chapters but no index, and the chapter titles were unhelpful at best, so Marina skimmed six promising chapters before deciding there would be nothing easily found there. Besides, the language was annoyingly flowery for an informative book, Marina thought, and she had a hard time breaking down the long sentences anyway. Her third book professed to be an extensive treatise on self-transfiguration, and it did actually discuss the animagus transformation with incredible detail. However, its one shortcoming was that nowhere did it actually tell her how to perform the transformation, which she now understood could only be accomplished after an almost interminable training process (she learned the word "interminable" from the book).

With a frustrated sigh, Marina pulled a notebook—Annie had gotten all the girls in their dorm hooked on muggle notebooks for notes rather than endless rolls of lose parchment—out of her bag and uncapped her ink pot to jot down the information this book did offer her.

"What are you doing?" Levi asked. She looked up; he was looking at her with concerned confusion, his eyebrows pushed together and up in the center. "You've been flipping pages and slamming covers pretty angrily."

"I'm doing research, and it's not going the way I want it to." She turned back to the book, rolling her eyes at her poor luck so far.

"What for? Can I help?"

"Do your work, Levi."

"Well you're not doing homework either, are you? Isn't that heppa—hippa—"

"Hypocritical?" Marina finished for him. "Maybe," she shrugged, "but this is actually about something I learned about in class last week. And anyway, I already finished all the work I'm supposed to have finished."

No sound rose from their table besides the turning of pages, the shuffle of paper, and the scratch of quill nibs for a while. Briefly, Marina rose to put her books away and dig up some new ones, but those turned up just as useless as the other ones. Could none of the books in the library contain information on animagi? With the size of the place, Marina found it quite unfathomable that she still couldn't find anything, yet here she was.

"That's the hour," Levi said, breaking the silence. He stood and began packing up his work. "Can I know what you're researching now?"

Marina pulled her upper lip between her teeth. Even if they could tell her little else, the books did all emphasize that all animagi must register with the Ministry, and anyone training to become one should also notify of the Ministry of their intention. It was implied, Marina understood, that an unregistered animagi was automatically a criminal to some degree. If she told Levi about her research, it could get back to a teacher, and she could get in trouble. On the other hand, simple research wouldn't get her in trouble, would it? Should she stick to the safe side and keep it a secret?

Levi, she noticed, popped up onto his toes to peek over at her notes. She scrambled to flip the notebook closed and shut the huge transfiguration book with a startlingly loud bang. The second year blinked and backed off.

"It's just—I—I'm only—" she stuttered.

He nodded. "Secret project. Got it."

Marina raised an eyebrow. "That's it?"

"Well, it seems like plenty of people in Ravenclaw have their own things they like. I've tried asking some older year students who look like they have some pretty cool books they're reading in the common room sometimes about what they're doing, and they always tell me it's a secret project for them only." Levi shrugged and scratched his shoulder. "It makes sense, I guess. Not everyone likes to share or explain."

Marina was about to thank Levi for understanding so well, but she was interrupted by the sound of running feet in the quiet library. Madame Pince screeched something about walking, for Merlin's sake, but then Peter Pettigrew was catching his breath at the table next to Levi.

"Alright, Pettigrew?"

"Erm, yeah—Marina, uh, we—er, you see, well, that is, James, uh—and Lily is—er, well, you'd better come quickly," Peter said, tripping over and mixing up all his words, probably from his run and clear state of excitement. The general message, however, was conveyed: James did something to Lily, and Lily reacted in some kind of way that warranted her help.

Marina took a moment, as she was hurriedly cramming her stuff into her bag and books back onto shelves, to roll her eyes and wonder how she ended up being the go-to girl for Peter Pettigrew's friend James in his time of need. She only advised him about Lily, what, once? Twice? Did she still owe him a favor from that time with Alfred perhaps? No matter the reason, she may as well go help the poor bloke, since Peter ran all the way to the library to fetch her. When she was ready, she said good night to Levi and walked with a brisk pace out of the library, right on Peter's heels.


	12. Chapter 12

**AN: It has been some time, and I'm sorry again, but I've been absolutely swamped with FINISHING MY SENIOR YEAR OF HIGH SCHOOL GUYS I GRADUATE THIS SATURDAY! Anyway, I was also having the worst writer's block ever, and I believe that was because I didn't have my plot details figured out and thus had no idea where I was actually going beyond the last chapter specifically. So I took a couple days to write out a whole summary of the story, all the way to where I see the end being, and let me tell you guys, we're only about a fourth of the way there. This is gonna end up being really heckin long, way longer than I actually expected. But now I have my mojo back, and school is done for the summer for me, so I'm going to hopefully get chapters up more frequently than I have been doing recently.**

 **Thank you to lilylivered, 911weasleytwins, and honorary-marauder-1 for helping me stay motivated to keep writing and being supportive in general in my life-I can't wait to see where our lives take us!**

Having now lived almost three school years in the Scottish castle that housed the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, Marina thought that she knew the quirks of the stone halls quite well. She knew that in warmer weather, the classrooms were still quite cool and even drafty at times unless there were windows that let in plenty of hot sun. She knew that the moving stairs had a complex but certain pattern and that Wednesday morning was the only time they were arranged efficiently for her schedule this year. She even knew there was a not-often-taken back stairway that let her and Artemis go from Charms to Arithmancy in half the time it took Alfred. Despite these things, Marina had not yet experienced firsthand the incredible ability of the bare hallways to magnify and transmit the sounds of a heated argument. Or, more appropriately, the sounds of an angry Lily Evans shouting invective at James Potter.

Peter Pettigrew led Marina out of the library, down the hall, and up a spiraling flight of stairs. Marina could hear the redhead screeching as soon as she got her ears in the stairwell. Halfway up, she stopped and grabbed the edge of Peter's robes. He turned, brow pinched in worry.

"What happened?" Marina asked.

Peter looked up towards the floor above them as Lily shouted what sounded like an insult to James's tie-tying skills, of all things. "Well, you know James…he, erm, well, you know how he is…"

Marina leaned forward, fixing Peter with as serious a stare as she could come up with. She hoped it was convincing. Lily continued her shouting above them, voice growing shriller and higher by the minute, sounding quite like a teakettle near boiling. "Peter. What—did—James—do?"

With a sigh that moved his whole body, Peter's head sagged forward, defeated. "He tried to transfigure her flowers from a quill she had behind her ear but it just turned her hair into flowers instead."

"What?!" Marina screeched, pushing past Peter to run up the rest of the stairs. Steps away, the yelling stopped, and the Ravenclaw emerged into the corridor just in time to watch Lily Evans spin on her heel, long, green, flowering vines fanning out behind her, a broken quill stuck in the mess, and storm off down the hall.

For a moment, she just stood, watching the Gryffindor girl as she reached the end of the hallway and exited onto the main landing. Then Marina heard someone blow out a shaky breath behind her, and she turned, facing James. At the moment, he looked as miserable as she had ever seen him—had she ever seen him upset before in the first place?—with his face pale, eyebrows just pushed slightly together, and shoulders drooping. Was that his lip quivering, to boot? Marina sighed, pushed her hair out of her eyes, and shook her head.

"James," she began, "what happened?" She tried to be gentle and avoid sounding like she was accusing him.

He merely shrugged loosely, dropping his head to stare at his feet. "I didn't mean to ruin her hair," he said. "I was just trying to—well, I don't know, impress her, I guess."

Marina frowned. James sounded so incredibly defeated, but what he had done hadn't been smart at all. She opened her mouth, but then spied Sirius and Remus over the boy's shoulders looking very worried, gesturing wildly at her. James looked up at her, hazel eyes big and sad behind his glasses. With a click of her teeth, Marina shut her mouth and sighed again. Maybe it wasn't the time to give him a scolding just then. That was what Sirius and Remus were trying to communicate, wasn't it? Not to destroy their friend? It did make sense to comfort first. That's what she did with Annie: she comforted her first before dealing with the facts of the situation. People were delicate when upset, Gideon had told her once; that was after she had gotten really frustrated with Rachel the Hufflepuff one time last year and had upset her. You have to be careful of their feelings first before solving their problems, or else hearing about their troubles could upset them more. This situation with James was one of those moments when she had to be gentle and careful of his emotions.

"Come on, let's go talk about this," she said softly. She thought about giving him a hug, but Marina decided that would be too much, so instead she turned back to the stairs to go back to the first floor. "The library's quite cozy," Marina said over her shoulder. "We can talk about this there rather than this corridor, James."

Behind her, Marina heard the other boys quietly telling James they'd meet him in their common room. Then his footfalls echoed in the quiet, mostly empty hallway as he followed her to the stairs. The pair of them descended the stairs in silence, walked slowly back to the library in silence, and found a comfortable, quiet spot to talk in silence. Everything about James shouted disappointment and hopelessness to Marina. He heaved a sigh that seemed bigger than his lungs could possibly handle and dropped his chin on the arms he folded up on the table in front of him. Marina sat down across from James and mirrored his position, biting her lip.

"So," she said. "What happened?"

James sighed again. "We were coming back from Transfiguration, and Lily had her quill behind her ear. She does that a lot," he added. "It's really cute. It's like she gets so focused on what she's doing that she can't put it away. Anyway, we were heading back from Transfig, and I got this idea to transfigure her quill into a lily, like her name, you know?" He looked up then with his eyebrows quirked up in question. He waited until Marina nodded, digging her chin into her arm as she did so, before he continued. "But I guess I didn't have my aim right, or maybe she moved or something when I was casting the spell. And then her whole hair turned into plants. And then she turned around and she moved so fast her quill fell from behind her ear but it got caught on her hair—er, plants, I guess—and it broke and she was just so mad and she yelled at me and called me a show-off and she had her wand out but her friends Marlene and Dorcas—you know Marlene and Dorcas, right?" he cut himself off, looking up again. "Marlene McKinnon and Dorcas Meadowes?" He settled his head again and looked back at the table's wood grain between them again after Marina nodded, and he went on. "Well, Marlene and Dorcas stopped her from, I don't know, Merlin knows what. Hexing me, probably. She hexed me last week after I jinxed Snivellus's hair to turn green and slimy in Potions, so she probably was going to hex me again. And so then she walked away. That's when you showed up with Peter," James finished. He buried his face in his arms and groaned. "What do I do?" he asked, voice muffled by the sleeves of his robes.

Marina blew her curls out of her eyes. She should probably have Lark cut it so it looked more even and less like she had just grown it out from a pixie cut. Lark cut her own hair, and it was curly too, so she'd probably know what to do with it. She'd have to think about it later, though, because James was upset. What could she tell him? He had made the blunder, so what did he expect? Marina thought for a few moments before coming up with something encouraging to say:

"I think if that had worked, it would have been really sweet," Marina said. "Maybe she even would have liked it."

James looked up so quickly she thought he might've given himself whiplash. "You think so?"

"Well," she said slowly, "I said 'maybe.' She also maybe would have been really upset anyway. It's not exactly the most practical thing to have your quill turn into a lily, you know. And," she continued, "you did mess up the spell, so it's not really important whether she would have liked it or not."

"I didn't mean to—"

Marina rolled her eyes as she interrupted him. "It doesn't matter what you meant right now. It matters what happened. Right now, she's upset because of what you did. It sounds like she's going to be upset about this for a while. You should definitely apologize to her at the very least."

"But what about after that? Or what if she won't even talk to me so I can say I'm sorry?"

With another sigh, Marina sat up. "If you really want my honest advice, I think you should leave her alone. Stop trying to impress her, stop trying to get her to like you, and stop trying to get her attention all the time." It was hard to keep going with James suddenly looking to hurt and betrayed, but she continued. "Apologize to her, and then give her space to get over it. And even after that, you should still give her space so she can get to know you on her own terms, if she wants to. You've made your attempt and your impression, so now it should be up to her, don't you think?"

James nodded, looking down at the table again. "I guess so." He looked up and smiled a small smile, but a smile nonetheless. "Thanks, Marina." With that, the boy pushed his glasses up his nose, took in a deep breath, which was different than sighing, better than sighing, and got up from the table to scamper off to wherever Gryffindor House was.

Marina got herself up from the table too. After looking around the library a bit to see if Levi had gone back to Ravenclaw Tower, which he seemed to have done since he was no longer anywhere that she could see, she decided that any other research was, for the time, a lost opportunity. She herself left the library and began the long trek up to her house's entrance on the fifth floor. It was annoying that she was interrupted, but it was even more annoying that the library didn't seem to have the resources to tell her what she wanted to know. Out of all the books on all the many shelves, it would make sense that somewhere, someplace was even one single book about the process of becoming an animagus. So why couldn't she find anything useful? Instead, all she was getting was theory about the transformation after someone already knew how to do it, or just mentions or definitions. Maybe she just wasn't being thorough enough. After all, she'd only been looking for one day.

"I say, aren't you going to dinner?"

Marina almost tripped on the next step as she stopped to look around. Her eyes landed on a small portrait of a gentleman wizard who was looking at her with a pipe raised aloft in his hand. He blinked at her.

"Should I be going to dinner?" she asked.

The wizard raised his eyebrows at her, took out a pocket watch, and squinted down at it, moving it forward and back to see it properly. "Well, I suppose so," he answered. "It's nearly six."

"Oh." Marina hadn't been aware of the time, but that was alright. She shrugged at the painted wizard and continued up the stairs. After she dropped her bag off in her dorm she would go back downstairs to eat. As it was, she was already closer to the fifth floor than the Great Hall.

Later, when Marina was tucking into a hot bowl of beef stew, Annie sat herself on the bench to her right and served herself a large helping of mashed potatoes. "I just watched Alfred Smith duel Jack Rivers very poorly over Etta Coldwater," Annie announced.

Marina, who was taking a drink at the time, almost spit her water out. "What?" she exclaimed, after she swallowed. "Who?"

Annie blinked. "Etta Coldwater and Jack Rivers, remember? Jack is in sixth year and was dating Etta Coldwater, who's in fifth year, since last year, but when Etta had the flu last semester Jack went to Hogsmeade with Tiffany Skew, that seventh year who always wears her silk dressing gown to breakfast on weekends, so when Etta found out she snogged Alfred in the common room to get back at Jack. I told you all this before Christmas holiday."

Marina nodded. "Yes, but Alfred dueled Jack Rivers?"

"Poorly, yes."

"Well, what happened?" Marina asked, forgetting her stew.

Annie shifted on the bench so she could face Marina without turning her head so much to the side. "Alfred was still upset that Etta couldn't give him any answer at all about their relationship, so instead of confronting Etta like any sane person, he confronted Jack. Jack Rivers got mad, and, you know, we're in third year and Jack is in sixth year, so he knows much more than Alfred does, thank Merlin, and he sent Alfred to the Hospital Wing in four minutes."

Marina rolled her eyes. "For all Alfred Smith claims he knows," she said, "he's really quite stupid."

"Dumb as a doornail," Annie agreed with a shrug.

—

As dumb as Marina and Annie personally thought Alfred was, that didn't seem to stop Etta from seeing Alfred's stunt as oddly endearing. As soon as Alfred was released by Madam Pomfrey, Etta was there to give Alfred a long, noisy, disgusting, public collection of kisses in the Ravenclaw common room, all the while showing Jack Rivers an obscene muggle gesture behind Alfred's back. For the next two weeks, every time the Ravenclaw third year girls entered their common room, they were attacked with the sickening sight of Alfred snogging Etta. It even got the the point where the boys in their year noticed it, too.

"Merlin, I hope Alfred and Etta are in the library or a broom closet or something," Irving said on Thursday as he, Evan, and Marina were walking up to Ravenclaw Tower after Ancient Runes. "I can't stand them."

"They're truly repulsive," Evan added.

Marina made a face in agreement. "I don't understand why they're still going at it," she said. "I mean, I get that Etta's doing it out of revenge, but why hasn't she stopped yet? And why on Earth is Alfred going along with it? Doesn't he know she couldn't care less about him?"

Irving snorted. "He's a bloke," he said. "He probably knows and doesn't care. Etta's fit enough that he shouldn't care, anyway."

Marina rolled her eyes. "That's so stupid," she said. "If I were him—and thank Merlin I'm not—I'd rather snog someone who I know actually liked me. I'll never understand boys," she said, shaking her head.

"And I'll never understand girls," Evan countered. "Out of all the blokes in the common room, why pick Alfred? He's awful to spend any time with. You've heard him go on and on about the daftest things to make himself sound smart."

For a moment, Marina frowned, thinking. Then she pushed her hair out of her face, trying to get it to stay behind her ears, and said, "Actually, I think Alfred was a very smart choice for what Etta wanted to accomplish. Her goal was to rub it in Jack's face that she was pissed off, and there are really two ways to do that, I suppose. Either snog the most attractive one in the room to say, 'Look, I'm better than you and can do better,' or snog the worst one in the room to say, 'Look, even this troll is better than you.' I suppose his obnoxiousness wouldn't be so much of an issue either because she's got his mouth occupied all the time anyway. What I can't understand is why she didn't leave it alone after she walked away from him before Christmas, and why she started it up again after Alfred antagonized Jack."

Both boys were quiet until Irving said, "Blimey, that's brilliant."

"Are all girls so clever about this stuff?" Evan asked.

"No, I don't think so," Marina answered. "It probably doesn't occur to some girls. It certainly wouldn't occur to me until after the fact."

As it happened, Alfred and Etta were, indeed, snogging in the common room. Disgusted, Evan, Irving, and Marina parted and just went to their respective dorms, not even bothering to cross the whole common room and instead taking the outer stairs. Marina hugged her arms and wished, as she always did when she circumvented the common room like this, that the stairway was warmer. She hurried her way to the third year girls' room before she started shivering. When she came into the dormitory, Lark was standing at the wall and updating the assignment lists for their shared classes, and Annie was sitting on her bed fiddling with a pot of magenta ink.

Lark glanced over at Marina. "Are Smith and Coldwater still in the common room?"

"Yep."

With a shudder, Lark screwed up her round face and stuck out her tongue. "I hope Temmie gets back without being traumatized," she said, going back to scratching her quill across the long parchment list against the stone wall.

Marina set her bag down on her trunk and slid off her shoes. "Artemis went down to the common room? What for?" Everyone had been avoiding it recently, especially the younger students, and except for the older students who could ignore the gross public affection.

"She went looking for something good to read from the shelves," Annie answered. "I think she had all her work finished, and you know she doesn't study."

Annie was referring, of course, to the long stretches of bookshelves in the common room, lining the study nooks and climbing up the walls so that you either needed a friend to cast a good Mobilicorpus or needed to summon a ladder. For generations, possibly as far back as the Founders themselves, Ravenclaws had been leaving books in the common room. Some may have been left deliberately, and some, Marina personally thought, may have been stashed and forgotten about. It was easy to find any school textbook you might've lost on the shelves, and it was just as easy to find leisure reading, most of it wizarding, plenty of it muggle. The only unspoken rule, as far as Marina understood, was that any book taken from the shelves had to be returned to the shelves. It wasn't quite as informative as the official Hogwarts library, of course, but it was quite respectable in its own way as a historical collection at the very least, if nothing else. Unfortunately, the only way to get to it was in the common room, which was an extremely risky location. Marina hoped Artemis would be alright.

The quietest of the Ravenclaw girls did return unscathed, and she had a pretty hefty muggle book with her to boot. At least her experience wasn't so bad, but, to be fair, Artemis hadn't been in the presence of Alfred and Etta for very long. It was a much worse torture the longer you had to look at them, as Marina found out the following week.

Valentine's Day was a holiday Marina had payed little to no attention to her previous two years at Hogwarts. Older students got mushier with their boyfriends and girlfriends and the Great Hall was temporarily decked out with paper garlands of pink and red hearts. It wasn't anything too odious. However, this year, the Ravenclaw third years were directly affected by Valentine's Day because of Alfred bloody Smith.

That evening after the four girls trudged back to Ravenclaw Tower from dinner—which did include the spectacle of every Slytherin student gradually growing pinker and pinker until the Slytherin table was a sea of hot pink students, followed by the appearance of heart-shaped bubbles spouting out of all their noses—Marina decided she should finally work on the star charts she had due for Astronomy later that week. For a while, she worked in the shared dorm without it bothering anyone, especially since Lark had fo finish hers, too. Once it got closer to ten, though, Annie announced that she wanted to get to sleep, just as Marina found the Divination assignment she was meant to have done for tomorrow's class.

"That's fine, as long as you don't make too much noise. You get annoyed with Divination and start flipping your textbook pages quite loudly, you know," Annie said, and said goodnight and closed her bed curtains.

Then Artemis went to sleep, then finally Lark asked to turn out the lamps in the room. With some reluctance, Marina gathered up her papers, books, and quills and retreated down to the common room, which was rarely deserted and whose lamps usually stayed on all night long. Ravenclaw housed many a night owl, many an early bird, and many a desperate student pulling yet another all-nighter, so it was normal to see students up and about the tower at all hours. Just as Marina expected, there was still a cluster of studying students seated near the fire. Just as she dreaded, Alfred was still awake with Etta.

Marina sighed as she ensconced herself in a study nook that offered the least view of the pair possible. Maia, who had followed her downstairs, settled at her feet, and Marina tried to make up something convincing enough to finish her assignment. She looked between what she had written and what was printed in her textbook and back again, she flipped the page to look at the chart of symbol meanings, she tapped the feathery end of her quill against the table, she shifted position in her seat, and she spent a good seven minutes staring at the label on her pot of black ink. The time dragged on, and the seconds ticked by, and Marina felt her eyelids begin to droop as she scrawled out a few sentences more. Then, in an effort to revive her focus, she looked up.

The pair was still there, by Merlin, and Marina quickly looked away to something less nauseating. Her olive eyes scanned the shelves, absently skimming the fading titles embossed and printed on the spines. For no particular reason, her gaze came to rest on a battered copy of their Transfiguration textbook for this year. At this point Marina was so tired of doing Divination, a class that she firmly believed was all a load of dragon dung for anyone who wasn't a proper Seer, that she would even rather be writing a theoretical essay for McGonagall on the mechanism of whatever the last spell they had learned was. She snorted lightly to herself; Merlin's pants, she'd even rather be practicing her transfiguring right then.

And then it hit her: why not kill two birds with one stone? If she went to the library to continue her animagus research, she could blow off Divination and get out of the common room all at once. Marina rose quickly, startling Maia awake, and started stashing her things in her school bag without much care for neatness or organization. Then she was crossing the common room and heading out of Ravenclaw Tower, with only one backward glance at the clock. It was just about one in the morning.

The only problem, really, was curfew, which had long since passed. Marina had heard from other students who wandered at night frequently that Filch was a formidable obstacle to a nice midnight walk. There were a few out-of-the-way passages Marina knew of that would conduct her to the library on the first floor, but it was likely that Filch knew of them too and would be checking them—or if not Filch, then his cat. Prefects, too, had rounds through the castle in the evenings after curfew, but it was possible that Marina was out of bed too late to run into any of them. In honesty, she didn't actually know how late the prefects stayed out in the castle, though she was sure they had to go to sleep at some point. And what if the paintings caught her? Some of the were quite nasty. With all this in mind, Marina decided her best bet might just be most usual daytime route, and therefore the least suspected by Filch; as long as she was quiet, she could probably get down to the first floor without waking any portraits. As for the prefects, well, she'd just hope that luck was on her side.

On tiptoes, Marina went as quickly and quietly as possible down the hall, around the corner, and approached the landing. She stuck her head out first, looking for anyone on the stairs and listening for the snores of a million painted wizards and witches. For only a moment she paused to breathe a sigh of relief that she had made it this far, and then she was off. Just in case, she crept down the stairs slowly, ready to duck below the stair bannister if she heard anyone coming. After five stories of this, her legs were tired from being bent and moving down the steps differently than she usually moved, but she had made it safely. There was no sign of Filch or Mrs. Norris's eery cat eyes, so it was so far so good. There were fewer portraits on the walls of the corridors that lead to the library, so Marina continued on at a normal walk.

The large doors into the library were shut, as always, but instead of yielding to a gentle push like they did during the day, they were locked at this hour. This was no real issue. Casting a furtive look around her to make absolutely certain no one was about, Marina flicked her wand, whispering, "Alohamora." With a soft click, the door unlocked, and it swung inward with only a gentle creak of its ancient hinges as Marina eased it open just enough to slip inside. "Colloportus," she said, and heard the door lock itself again.

After tucking her wand away again, Marina headed for the section of shelves dedicated to transfiguration-focused books, noting the ones she had already looked through and trying to guess which ones might tell her what she needed to know. She spent some time tugging various books off the shelves and skimming through their pages for any word of animagi, turning up just as much as she had the last time she looked; that is to say, she found a fat lot of nothing useful. When she heard the bell tower chime out three in the morning, Marina decided she had been out late enough and started walking back towards the library doors. It was frustrating that she hadn't found a single helpful thing, like last time, but the excitement of sneaking around the castle after curfew was wearing off and leaving her sleepy.

Her winding route through the aisles brought her past the restricted section of the library, and Marina lingered there, yet another idea suddenly growing in her head. No one was in the library to tell her not to, so maybe she could just have a quick peek...

The restricted section, which Marina had never had the occasion to peruse before, was like a breath of fresh air, a total relief. In two beats of a hippogriff's wings, the fourteen-year-old had found a very promising little book entitled _The Humble Journey of a Seeker for the Art of Animagical Transfiguration of the Self, transcribed, translated, and transposed by Brutus the Younger_ , with no original author to be found anywhere on the cover, colophon, or title page. There were a few pages of introduction by this Brutus the Younger fellow, which Marina read through with an increasing bubble of excitement brewing in her chest. Yes, this was perfect—it would be a perfect guide to follow. Now the only thing left was to get back upstairs and get to bed.


	13. Chapter 13

**AN: Okay so this is coming pretty quickly after my last chapter, yay for having free time in the summer! I'm very happy to report that as of May 23, just four days ago, this fic is now a whole year old! 12 chapters in a year isn't too bad, right? If I updated with any consistent regularity that'd be like a chapter a month! Not too shabby, imo. Oh btw this is my LONGEST CHAPTER YET AT ABOUT 8,500 WORDS HOLY GUACAMOLE GUYS!**

 **Slight warning that this chapter is another one of those wow-these-are-fourteen-year-olds-and-they-make-lewd-comments-sometimes chapters. They're still 14 though. I'll be gradually adding maturity as best as I can as they get older, but I fell down a lot of inappropriate internet rabbit holes early on so my conception of growing maturity levels are a liiiiiiittle bit skewed lol.**

"Alohamora," came the whispered charm. The old hinges creaked. "Colloportus." The lock clicked back into place.

Marina hitched her bag higher up on her shoulder, very aware of the restricted book tucked inside between her Divination and Astronomy textbooks and hidden under crumpled pieces of parchment. She looked to the right, then to the left, making sure no one else was in the corridor, before walking on to the Grand Staircase. It was late, so late—she'd be falling asleep in class tomorrow, no doubt, but it was probably worth it, wasn't it? She could make herself extra strong tea at breakfast. With a quiet sigh, Marina began the ascent up to the fifth floor. So, so many stairs.

As she climbed, Marina pondered the book she had found. _The Humble Journey of a_ —what was it? Something long and ridiculous, that's what. The introduction by Brutus had told her, more or less, that the original work was old, very old, a thousand years old. It was a journal, someone's notebook of their experiments and research, that this Brutus person discovered in an old Irish monastery, or something, written in an old version of Gaelic mixed with Celtic wizarding runes, and he brought it back to wherever he was from and reworked the whole thing into a book that modern wizarding kind could use and learn from. Whoever had kept the journal originally had, in the end, successfully achieved the animagus transformation, and the information checked out with many leading scholars of Brutus's day, so it was obviously a reputable source. Marina was excited to dive into it, to tell the truth, and hoped it would be everything she needed to learn the transformation. She hoped, too, that no one would notice it was missing from the library.

With the prospects of becoming an animagus so attainable, right in her book bag, in fact, Marina was positively giddy—but maybe that was the lack of sleep, too. Regardless, she was so excited that she couldn't help but let out a little giggle. And that was a mistake.

"STUDENT OUT OF BED! STUDENT ON THE STAIRS!" screamed Peeves the infamous poltergeist, appearing through a wall to Marina's left. "STUDENT OUT OF BED!"

Shocked, Marina froze on the stairs, steps away from the third floor landing. She gawked at the apparition, jaw slack as she watched him cackle to himself and perform delighted loop-de-loops in the air. Then she jumped and spun around to look down at the first floor; someone had just run up the bottom of the Grand Staircase with thundering steps towards the moving stairs. Marina leaned over the rail of the stairs to get a better look, and locked eyes with Filch, the Caretaker. That was all she needed to start running, but just as she took a step towards the landing ahead of her, the stone steps came to life beneath her feet, jerking into motion. Marina stumbled.

"WHAT'S SHE GONNA DO NOW?" laughed Peeves. "TOO FAR FROM HER TOWER, THE ICKLE PRINCESS'LL NEVER MAKE IT!"

Marina bounced on her toes, heart thumping in her chest, waiting as the stairs moved so, so, so agonizingly slowly, listening to the ominous thump, thump, thump as Filch climbed up the stairs as quickly as he could. Oh, Merlin, she had put her foot in it, hadn't she? At last the stairs connected to a floating landing, and she bounded up to it, taking the steps two at a time, hurrying up the next connecting stair segment and praying it wouldn't move away from that fourth floor landing before she could get to it. She jinxed it by thinking about it, apparently, because halfway up it started moving, sending her towards the opposite side of the castle from Ravenclaw Tower.

Peeves was still shouting in glee above her. "FILCHY-PILCHY-POO'S GONNA CATCH YOU!" he cried.

"Shut up!" Marina shouted, pausing to glare daggers at the poltergeist and look down to see where Filch was. He was gaining on her, only two floors away, but luckily there was no direct path connecting them. Marina pushed her hair out of her face and ran on.

At the fourth floor, Marina dashed down the corridor away from the moving staircases, taking turns at frightening speeds, too panicked to pay much attention to where she was going so long as it got her to another set of stairs. She skidded to a stop as she reached a different landing than the one she had arrived on in the first place, and thankfully it featured a direct route up to the fifth floor landing closest to Ravenclaw Tower. She sprinted as well as one could sprint up stairs. Marina reached the center landing and kept going. Two steps up she heard the stairs behind her shift away, thank Merlin. She ran, ran, ran. And then the stairs started moving. With a cry of frustration, Marina stopped and stomped her foot. A glance cast over her shoulder told her that, against her luck, Filch now had direct access to her. Her heart nearly jumped up her throat. The stairs stopped at another floating landing, but Marina didn't care. Her only thought was to escape the caretaker. So she ran.

"MISSED HER STOP, SHE DID! PEEVESIE HOPES TO SEE THE ICKLE PRINCESS STRUNG UP BY HER TOES WHEN SHE'S CAUGHT!"

Up, up, over, up—Marina finally found herself with nowhere else to go but down the left-hand seventh floor corridor. This was where she and Annie had made their exploring attempt, she remembered. Maybe there was a little alcove or something that she could hide in? Marina almost tripped over her own ankles as she stumbled to a stop, having nowhere left to run. The trolls in the tapestry on the wall seemed to mock her, twirling and hopping. Partially to test her luck and partially to stop looking at them, Marina yanked the tapestry to the side, hoping there was a passageway behind it, but there was only the flat stone wall. In the distance, Filch's loud footsteps were growing louder and less distant, making Marina's heart pound even faster. Like a caged animal, she started pacing, wracking her brain for some way to hide. She needed somewhere to hide, desperately. She had to hide from Filch.

An ugly mreowrr noise made Marina gasp and spin around, only to lock eyes with Mrs. Norris. With a squeak, she spun back again, away from the mangy cat, and blinked at the large, ornate doors right in front of her face. They had not been there. Those were not there before. Had they been?

Filch's ominous footfalls prompted Marina to pull the doors open by their ring-shaped handles and duck inside, tugging them shut again behind her. For a moment, she stood at the door, ear pressed to the wood, trying to hear if Filch would try to follow her in. After she listened to him growl a curse and jog away, Marina breathed out a sigh of relief and turned to inspect the room in which she found herself. Before her, as far as she could see in any direction besides the door at her back, were piles, stacks, mountains of stuff. Desks, chests, books, chairs, boxes, cloaks, hats, scarves, bags, stools, lamps, everything she could think of that might show up in Hogwarts was there. In an instant, Marina was filled with the urge to explore forever. Holding the strap of her bag in a secure grip, she stepped closer to a tower of books and tilted her head to read the spines. Some were textbooks that looked water damaged or charred, some were worn muggle books with risqué titles, and some were so mangled that Marina couldn't tell what they were. Her knees knocked into a vandalized chair, on which, she found, was a pile of robes that, upon closer inspection, were all ripped or stained or horribly destroyed in some unpresentable way. To her left was a glass-doored cabinet that contained stacks of broken china plates, cups, and bowls, as well as a few fractured or wholly shattered crystal goblets. A few yards further into the room was a dress form outfitted in a garish set of dress robes, all bright fuchsia and offensive, topped with a silk top hat sporting a single ridiculously large white peacock feather. There was a drawer in a little corner table that was busting with failed essays on flattened parchment scrolls, red-inked marks now mostly faded away. On top of a very tall shelf she noticed a noseless bust wearing a tiara.

What was this place full of forgotten, forsaken things? How had it just appeared out of nowhere? Marina found a pile of ripped cushions to sit down on, and she made herself comfortable as she looked all around her, taking in the sheer amount of stuff the room held. From this new position she could see, in the distance, a whole mound of what looked like splintered and snapped brooms. Could this be a room used as a garbage dump, kept out of sight unless it was needed? After all, everything around her appeared to be items nobody wanted, the refuse of a castle full of wizarding students.

Marina was too tired and the cushions were too comfortable for her to put much thought into it. It must've been nigh on four in the morning, heading towards five. Classes began at eight, and breakfast at 6:30—if she hurried, she could get to her dorm to catch a couple hours of sleep at least. But if Filch was still roaming the halls, looking for her, then she'd never make it, especially with Peeves the poltergeist on the loose. Perhaps she should wait until 5:30, when curfew ended. In the meantime, Marina settled deeper into the cushions and brought the restricted book carefully out of her bag, minding the delicate state of the old binding, even if Madam Pince had fortified it with magic, which she probably had. It seemed the room grew brighter, then, and Marina looked up and around her to find a floor lamp with a very flashy lampshade was suddenly lit behind her shoulder, just in the perfect place for reading light.

After the long, exhausting, eventful night she had, Marina struggled to stay awake once she began reading the book.

 _I have decided for the good of my own health and the safety of wizardkind that it would benefit me greatly if I were to learn a means of natural and simple disguise. Those with no magic have seen my powers in many occasions of accident of late, in my endeavors to heal their ill and injured and to curate my wandwood trees and herb gardens for my own craft. If I wish to remain undiscovered and unknown, I believe I must become one of the creatures I call friends and helpmates. With any set of new features, whether they be four legs and a fur hide, scales and fins, or feathers and wings, it will be more possible to discretely transport myself from place to place and observe those who have not our gift of magic. The trouble is self-transfiguration and its habit of working too well for those who intend to exploit it, and I do not wish to rely on any other witch or wizard, for they cannot be trusted with knowledge and involvement in my tasks and duties that I have set for myself in this life. There is one perfect means with which a witch or wizard may disguise the self; however, it comes at great cost of time and energy and focus, and the one in pursuit of the skill must be absolutely determined that they should accomplish the feat for fear of continuous failure. I have done my own exploration into the writings of those who come before me in this quest for another form and believe that I have a duty to amass them and contribute my own experience with the matter so that I those who come after me may take the preliminary work I have done and benefit from it. I also find it prudent that I should maintain a record of my every attempt so that I may analyze my course of actions in retrospect should I fail and hope to succeed. In this record first I shall lay out what knowledge on the subject I have in my possession and second shall describe my trials with it and perhaps will annotate to some extent the words of my predecessors in the hope that it will be an aid to whomsoever may look to my humble record for assistance in their own journey to the attainment of this skill._

She found her mind wandering to the question of the room's existence and her eyelids drooping as she stared at the pages of fine print. When she reached the book's first diagram, Marina realized she had no idea what it was talking about or what it was referring to. Her eyes were getting tired, and her lids grew heavy. The fine print on the pages made focusing difficult without squinting and holding the book close to her face, even with the helpful, if inexplicable reading light. Her eyes were sore from being awake too long, and from somewhere, she heard the tolling of the bell tower calling out the half hour, followed by numerous smaller chimes scattered about within the room. The melody of the bells inspired Marina to rest her eyes for just a moment. They really were very comfortable cushions.

When she woke up, Marina realized that her pile of cushions was actually located rather handily near a door labeled as a bathroom and toilet. A clock on a desk with one broken leg near her head read 6:52, and if it had been one of the clocks still miraculously on time, then Marina had gotten around two and a half hours of sleep. That was a sizable nap, at least, but it was less sleep than she would have liked. Annie, Artemis, and Lark probably slept fantastically—and they'd probably be worried when they couldn't find her in the morning. There was still time to catch them at breakfast, though, if Marina moved quickly.

The third-year stood up and stretched out her muscles and bones from her unusual sleeping position. Something in her lower back popped, and her neck was a little sore, but it wasn't anything she couldn't handle. Marina packed her bag up again before heading into the very convenient bathroom. Still tired, it was only after she'd gotten into the shower cubicle that she noticed all the products she used were present, and hers alone, without sitting in a shower caddy that always seemed to have shower gel dried in a long drip down the side. Even the lime green loofah with its missing woven cord loop was sitting balanced on the pumps of her face soap and shampoo bottles, exactly how she kept it at home to avoid having it sit in a puddle of water. Somehow, the fact that the toiletries were tailored to Marina alone was more odd than if it had been a replica of the Ravenclaw girls' bathroom, which was always devoid of anyone's personal touches so long as you got to it early enough in the morning—the castle house elves cleaned it overnight during curfew hours, Marina assumed. Regardless, she had a quick shower, certain she could skip washing her hair for times' sake since she had washed it the day before, and her curls hid any oiliness fairly well, much better than that Snivellus kid's lank hair did, anyway.

"Snivellus" Snape—whose name Marina didn't actually know—was a common target of the second-year Gryffindor boys. From what Lark knew, because Lark was always so much better informed than Marina herself usually was, the Slytherin boy was friends with Lily and had been since before Hogwarts, and that naturally caused some tension between James and Snivellus. It also seemed he was an all-around unpleasant sort of character, rude to first-years and looked up to the older, scary-and-sometimes-cruel-with-pureblood-fanatic-parents type of Slytherins, that sort of thing. As Lily was a muggleborn, as far as Marina knew, she wasn't sure why the younger witch liked the Snivellus boy so much, but she could certainly understand why James, Remus, Peter, and Sirius wouldn't like him. Marina hadn't ever met the kid that she could recall, but she had seen him around from time to time, most often when he was obviously jinxed by the boys and thus quite noticeable in a crowd.

With towels Marina wasn't convinced had been there before her shower, she dried off and wrapped up her hair before brushing her teeth. Again, somehow her own toothbrush was in this bathroom. It was all very strange, and Marina decided she should most definitely consult her roommates about the whole thing. Between Lark's older siblings and Artemis's long magical history she was sure one of them knew something about this improbably convenient room. Unfortunately, the room couldn't conjure up a clean set of school robes, it seemed, because all Marina could do there was cast a Scourgify and hope they didn't look too wrinkled up from being slept in. With one last look around the room, Marina slipped out the tall wooden doors. Noting, again, that the tapestry of the dancing trolls was right across the hall, Marina committed the location of the room to memory in case she needed to use it again or show it to anyone. A few steps down the corridor, she paused and turned to look back for no particular reason—the door was gone. Left even more confused and curious by this development, Marina frowned and started on the long trek down to breakfast.

Apparently twelve- and thirteen-year-old boys didn't get up very early at all, so Marina met the four Gryffindor second-years on the stairs just a little after the bells announced the half-hour. Coming from two sides of the castle, they just about ran into each other. James, she noticed, brightened immediately upon seeing her.

"Good morning Marina!" he greeted. "Did you have a nice Saint Valentine's Day?"

Oh, that was right: yesterday had been Valentine's. That was why she'd left the common room in the first place, wasn't it? She wasn't sure how much Marina wanted to tell them of how her Valentine's went, so she settled on a vague and noncommittal answer, the kind of thing adults use when they just want to be polite but don't really want to answer.

"It was alright," she said with a shrug. "Nothing too out of the ordinary for me."

James's face opened in a picture of indignant surprise. "What, it wasn't absolutely brilliant? Don't you have a boyfriend to do something fantastic for you on the most romantic day of the whole year?" he asked. "I'm offended for you. My dad always got my mum three dozen red roses and a full breakfast in bed every Valentine's."

Marina rolled her eyes, but laughed. Dramatic behavior, she was learning, was quite typical of James in almost every situation. "No, no boyfriend," she said, shaking her head. She immediately thought of Evan presenting her with three dozen red roses, but that thought was best pushed out of her mind. "Please tell me you made it through all of yesterday without any grand gestures for Lily."

"Not a one," James said solemnly. "I'm trying to follow your advice."

With an eyebrow raised in question, Marina looked to the other boys, who all nodded to back up James's claim. "The most we did all day was that stunt with the pink Slytherins at dinner, honest," Sirius said. "Though one time," he continued, looking to James with a smirk, "we did have to restrain the sod—"

"Only once!" James cried. "It's not my fault the firelight makes Lily's whole face glow…"

Before any more teasing could happen, Marina laughed and commended James for his self-restraint. She spent the rest of the walk to the Great Hall listening to the boys bantering amongst themselves. From time to time they called her into it to back something up, like once when Remus was trying to prove that Sirius's idea of setting fire to Slytherin House was stupid and asked Marina whether or not stone was flammable for emphasis. Each time she simply agreed with whatever whichever boy was trying to make a point of, just for fun, and she even heard a portrait or two chuckling in their frames and the boys' antics. By the time they arrived for breakfast, Marina had momentarily forgotten all about the strange room she had spent the night in.

After she parted from the boys inside the Great Hall, Marina went to sit at the Ravenclaw table, joining Artemis and Annie. She was greeted by the wide, worried eyes of Annie and the slightly raised eyebrows of Artemis.

"Where were you this morning?" Annie asked as soon as Marina had climbed over the bench. "I was going to wake you but your bed was empty. Artemis and I didn't know what to think!"

Marina grinned, recalling everything the Gryffindor boys had distracted her from. "I have quite the story," she said, helping herself to toast and blackberry jam. "Don't worry," she added as one of Artemis's eyebrows lifted a little more, "I didn't get in any trouble or do anything dangerous. Well, I almost got caught, but I didn't actually get caught."

"So you snuck out," Artemis guessed—well, it never seemed like she was guessing, but for lack of a better word, she guessed. Extrapolated?

"I did!" She took a large, punctuating bite of her toast, smiling a proud smile. "I was in the common room last night, when you all wanted to sleep and I needed to keep working, you know, and Alfred and Etta were down there and they were truly offensive, so instead of looking at them while I stared idly into space, I looked at the shelves as I stared idly into space—I stared at some Transfiguration textbooks, actually—and that gave me the idea to just go to the library instead, which would get me out of their presence and let me keep re—uh, keep working," she rambled, stopping short as she realized she hadn't told anyone about her animagus project. Marina still wasn't sure it was the sort of thing she should be telling people about. Soon though, she might need help, and it would be more and more difficult to keep it a secret. For now, though, she was sure it would be alright if she didn't say anything about it. It wasn't an important part of last night's story, anyway. She continued. "I made it to the library with no trouble, and I was there until three this morning—oh, good morning Lark."

"Morning," Lark said, sitting down sideways on the bench and grabbing a blueberry scone. "What's this about nighttime library visits?"

"Mina snuck out because Etta and Alfred are sickening," Annie summarized. "She's about to tell us why she didn't come back to the dorm afterwards."

"Oh, do tell." Lark tossed her hair out of her way and took a large bite of her breakfast. "Hurry, though, because we've only got two minutes before we have to head out."

Oh, right, they had double Potions that morning. Fantastic. Just the sort of thing Marina wanted to sit through after getting two and a half hours of sleep. If she had done this tonight, she could've used History of Magic to nap tomorrow morning. With a groan, Marina hurried to get the rest of her toast eaten.

"I'll tell you on our way there," Marina said around her mouthful—usually talking before swallowing was Lark's bad habit, but Marina supposed borrowing it was alright for one day. "We don't have the time to sit and listen to me talk."

The girls finished up and gathered their things, except for Lark, who gathered her things with her half-finished scone held in her mouth. Marina checked through her bag again, reassuring herself that the little restricted book was still, in fact, there, under a crumpled piece of parchment and between her Astronomy and Divination textbooks, just where she had tucked it this morning. She was excited to keep reading it when she had a spare moment and after she'd had a nap. Maybe she should also skim over what she had been reading last night, too, just to make sure she had all the information down.

"Okay, so tell us the rest of the story," Lark prompted as the four Ravenclaw girls left the Great Hall.

"Well, I was in the library until three," Marina continued, choosing not to mention that she went into the restricted section or took a book, "and I was going to come straight upstairs and go to sleep. I was tired, though, so I wasn't being as careful as I should've been being, and I made a little too much noise and attracted Peeves." Marina paused, acknowledging the sympathetic wince Annie was giving her; last semester Annie had been caught up in one of Peeves's dung bomb pranks. "So of course Peeves hollered out that I was a student out of bed, and that brought Filch running. I was working my way up the moving stairs at the time, so I had a mad dash up. I took a few too many detours, though, and I had to miss the fifth floor if I didn't want Filch to catch me. I made it up to the seventh floor, and—Annie, do you remember when we tried exploring and didn't find anything?"

Annie blinked behind her glasses. "Yes," she said, "we only found that tapestry with the loony wizard trying to dance ballet with trolls." A patented Annie grin lit up her face at the memory. "Were you in that corridor?"

With a nod, Marina went on with the story. "I was up there, and I could hear Filch getting closer, and then I spotted Mrs. Norris, and then suddenly these doors—oh, Merlin's saggy pants!" Marina cried, stopping in the middle of the stairs down to the dungeons. She opened her bag and searched through it again, stomach sinking when she realized she'd forgotten her Potions textbook. It was still up in the dorm room where she had left it the previous evening.

"What's wrong?" Annie asked.

"My textbook. I left it upstairs."

"I think you've got time to run up and get it if you go fast," Lark said. "Go on, go!"

Marina nodded, spun around, and began racing up the stairs. Behind her, Artemis called, "They left the Great Hall after we did, careful!" Marina only had a second to wonder what she meant before she ran smack dab into someone at the top of the stairs. She was already in the middle of apologizing before she looked up to see who it was, but when she found herself looking into Evan's warm brown eyes, her tongue tripped and she said "I'm so sorr—I—you—ran in you too" instead of "I'm so sorry I ran into you." Flustered, Marina sidestepped to get around him, suddenly rethinking her decision to skip washing her hair earlier and hoping she wasn't blushing very noticeably, but she sidestepped into Irving What's-his-name, which threw her off balance and had her falling over, happily back towards Evan. This must've been what Artemis meant, then.

Evan caught her and set her right again. "Whoa there, alright Marina?" he asked, hands still on the outsides of her shoulders.

Sweet Merlin. Marina cleared her throat and smiled. "Yeah, I'm alright. I just, uh, I forgot my Potions book upstairs, and I was heading up to get it."

As if he were trying to outdo Annie's sunny grin, Evan smiled a beautiful smile back and let her go. "Well, better hurry, then. It's only Slughorn, but still."

"Yeah, I'm trying," Marina laughed. "Thanks for, well, your help, there."

Her face must've been absolutely on fire as Marina successfully passed between Evan and Xavier, who was on his other side, and continued on her hurried way up to Ravenclaw Tower. As she went, she thought she heard Xavier say something like, "Damn, Evan, did you get a feel in?" and she thought she heard Evan laughingly reply something like, "No, you perverted git!" but she couldn't really be sure. Besides, what would Evan have felt? He'd grabbed her by the upper arms, after all, so—oh, had he been referring to her breasts? Marina made a face. Leave it to Xavier Whatever-his-surname-was to turn something dirty. That had been a common theme with him this year: dirty jokes and comments. It left her feeling a bit icky, the comments, but at least she wasn't so much bothered by his jokes now that she knew what they meant, most of the time. Every so often she still had to check something with Lark, just to make sure she was understanding, but for the most part she thought she had pretty much copped onto the gross boy humor. Not that she thought it was funny—well, okay, maybe sometimes it was funny, but mostly it was just mildly exasperating.

By the time she reached the entrance to Ravenclaw Tower, Marina was quite winded. The eagle knocker asked her a riddle, but she was so tired and out of breath from the running and staying up too late that even if she could have thought up the answer she wouldn't have been able to actually give the answer until she could properly speak again. So it was lucky, really, in some twisted, unfortunate sort of way, that Alfred Smith opened the door from the inside at that exact moment. Nearly bent double trying to catch her breath, Marina couldn't exactly get out of the way quickly, and thus was spotted by Alfred.

"Oh, Marina, I would've thought you'd be downstairs already. Are you looking forward to double Potions? You know, I looked at what we'll be brewing today—you knew we were brewing today, didn't you?—and it looks like quite the piece of cake! I'll wager I've got it down already, in fact. Say, why don't we go down together? I've been looking into the history of using flobberworm mucous in potions and I have to say it's really fascinating; would you like to hear about it as we walk?"

"No, I just came up for my textbook," Marina replied, raising herself up to her full height, which, she was pleased to note, was just a bit taller than Alfred himself. "You'd better go on without me."

Alfred shrugged. "Suit yourself."

As soon as she was out of his line of sight, Marina rolled her eyes with passion. Just her luck she had to run into Alfred up here. Briefly, as she was climbing the stairs up to her dorm room, she wondered why he'd been up in Ravenclaw rather than downstairs in the Great Hall. Did he skip breakfast? She decided, after a moment, that she really didn't care. As soon as she found her textbook, she'd have to rush all the way backdown the stairs, and she didn't want to waste her energy thinking about why Alfred was wherever he was. If anything, she'd rather think about why Evan was wherever he was, but he was, unfortunately, not as perplexing as Alfred had been, and Alfred had only been mildly perplexing at best.

—

At lunch that same day Marina finally picked up the rest of her forgotten story, after Annie and Marina sat through a terrible Divination class with Quincy and Gideon, during which the old Divination professor spent twenty whole minutes humming with her eyes closed and wiggling her fingers over a bowl of bird entrails. Supposedly, they were raven entrails, but Marina wasn't convinced they weren't just plain old sparrow entrails. Either way, Marina had no bloody clue how she was supposed to read Annie's future from bird guts. She spent the class listening to Quincy and Gideon's hushed banter instead, trying very hard not to doze off in the dimly-lit room. Really, the Divination classroom was quite a cozy place, with its incense, lamps of colored glass, and patterned wall hangings, it was just that the forms of divination that were taught therein—and rather poorly taught, in Marina's opinion—were a load of dragon dung. It was left to too much personal interpretation and discretion. So of course every time she was in that class, Marina spent it looking forward to lunch.

"So," Marina said, leaning over her bowl of chicken noodle soup, "I was caught by Peeves, had to run past the fifth floor, got cornered on the seventh floor." She glanced to her right, where Alfred was feeding Etta Coldwater olives a yard or so away, to make sure no one was listening. "Mrs. Norris had me against the wall, and then I turned around and these doors were there. I swear they hadn't been there before. So I went in them, obviously, because I needed somewhere to hide and I didn't have another option, and anyway I wanted to know what was inside the doors. You should've seen it; it was a room just bursting with junk, broken chairs and brooms and failed essays and the like. I ended up spending the night in there. In the morning I found this bathroom that already had all my things in it, which was really strange. I thought I'd ask you two about it," Marina concluded, looking between Artemis and Lark, who were sitting across the table from her and Annie, as usual, "because you both are more likely to know about it than I am."

"How curious," Annie said. "I knew Hogwarts was full of surprises, but I thought it was only secret passages and whatnot, like old servant passages. Old castles have lots of those. I never expected a room could just appear out of thin air."

"Hm," Lark hummed.

"'Hm?'" Marina questioned.

"Yes, 'hm.'" She finished off the last bite of her sandwich. "That's just it: things can't just appear out of thin air. You have to conjure them. I'm not sure you can conjure a room, though, and you never said you specifically conjured anything. And anyway there's no way you could've conjured all the stuff you said was in it, and if you just found the bathroom then it's unlikely you conjured that, either."

The girls sat in silence for a minute, thinking. "Maybe I did conjure it," Marina suggested. "I remember thinking I needed someplace to hide. Do you think that could've done it?" Then she sighed, and answered her own question: "No," she said, "I never specifically conjured it, you're right. That only would've worked if there were already some sort of spell there, don't you think?"

"What, like the room is there all the time but it needs someone to come along and think about it before the door appears?" Annie asked.

Lark cocked her head and narrowed her eyes. "You know, that's more likely than accidentally conjuring a whole room. I bet there's a way you could accidentally conjure a door if a room was already enchanted to wait for someone to accidentally conjure a door."

With a snap, Artemis grabbed the girls' attention. "The Room of Hidden Things," she said, sitting up a little straighter than usual.

"The what?"

"The Room of Hidden Things. It's part of the Come and Go Room."

"Temmie, what in Merlin's name are you talking about?"

Artemis furrowed her eyebrows. "The Come and Go Room. It comes and goes as it's needed. My brother once told me he hid his dress robes in there to get out of going to Slughorn's Christmas party in his seventh year. The Room of Hidden Things shows up if you need to hide something, he said."

The girls sat in the enlightened silence that follows a revelation, or maybe an epiphany. Of course, Marina thought. A room that responds to someone's need responded to her need to hide, and it provided her with the Room of Hidden Things. That's why it was filled with junk: it was all stuff that Hogwarts students (and probably staff, too) had hidden over the years, broken things, failed things, embarrassing things. So it sort of was a garbage room, of sorts. Only, from what little Artemis had said, it sounded as if the Come and Go Room could provide other things, too.

"I didn't know you had a brother," Annie said, breaking the quiet.

"Oh, Apollo's already married with children. He finished school before I started. His wife Siv is very quiet, but Thorfinn, my nephew, is a very clever little boy."

"...Right."

Herbology was right after lunch, so the girls tried to finish quickly so they'd have plenty of time to walk all the way to the greenhouses. Artemis and Lark left first, and Annie lingered at the Ravenclaw table so that Marina could finish her soup. She'd been talking, so she hadn't been able to eat as quickly as everyone else. As Marina slurped up the last few noodles from her bowl, Annie turned to her, sitting with her bent knee on the bench in front of her. She looked as if she had something she wanted to say, and her eyebrows were pinched together and the corners of her mouth were turning down in her usual worrying face. Marina found she was disappointed that Annie's worrying face was making such a common appearance lately; she wasn't disappointed with Annie, really, but she was rather disappointed in the circumstances that happened in just the right way that meant Annie had to worry about them.

"What's wrong?" Marina asked.

Her blonde friend hesitated and took a deep breath before answering, "There's something in your story that you're not telling us, isn't there? You had to correct yourself a couple times, and I doubt you'd go all the way to the library to finish a bit of homework unless there was something else in the library you wanted to do. I know you—you'd rather skip the Divination assignment than go all the way downstairs in the middle of the night."

Marina bit her lip, torn. She wanted to tell Annie about her secret animagus project, truly she did. It was the sort of thing that was exciting enough that it had to be shared, and who better to understand her excitement over it than her friend Annie? Besides, Annie would never tell a soul if Marina asked her not to. Well, neither would Quincy, but Marina was fairly certain that Quincy just wouldn't appreciate her interest in the topic the same way that Annie would. On the other hand…well, Marina could get in a lot of trouble, couldn't she, if Annie did decide to tell? Already she'd broken curfew, snuck into the restricted section of the locked library, and stolen a book, all in the name of her research. The whole business was quite the risk for Marina, and even if Annie didn't let it slip, if someone found out then Annie could get in trouble too.

With a small sigh, Marina made up her mind. "I'll tell you, I swear, but not here. I have to make sure no one can overhear us."

"Is it bad, what you're doing?" Annie asked.

"Well, it's technically—"

"Is it bad?" she asked again, tone more urgent, more hushed.

Marina shook her head. "No. It's got nothing to do with the Dark Arts, I promise."

Annie accepted this with a nod, and then the two girls were off to Herbology. Luckily, Professor Sprout never asked students to use their textbooks during class, and neither did Professor Raleigh, so Marina was able to avoid another run up the stairs. With that fortuitous starting note, classes went smoothly for the rest of the afternoon, including Raleigh's lecture over vampires that Marina largely ignored in favor of gazing at Evan in front of her. As always, Annie subtly kicked Marina when the irritable wizard started suspecting a lapse in attention so that she could at least pretend she was aware of what was actually going on. After class, because it was Tuesday, Marina had to meet Rachel the Hufflepuff in the library. It would likely be uneventful, as always. Rachel had improved loads with her independent work, especially since she first met the girl, and Marina suspected that next year she wouldn't be seeing much of her.

"You may as well come to the library with me," Marina suggested to Annie. "After I'm done with Rachel, we can find somewhere to talk there."

Walking in through the (unlocked) library doors gave Marina an unexpected bout of nerves. Could Madam Pince somehow have found her out? Surely the librarian would have noticed the missing book? But no, not a word was said nor a suspicious eyebrow raised as Marina entered the library with Annie in tow. That, at least, was a relief. However, sitting through the whole hour with Rachel was a challenge that Marina hadn't anticipated. With the quiet, cozy atmosphere, it was extremely tempting to rest her eyes for a moment, but she knew that resting her eyes would result in falling completely asleep. Thankfully, Rachel was diligently working and didn't ask for much help beyond checking if her Potions essay was structured alright, so she probably didn't notice that Marina was slowly slipping away as time wore on. Annie knew her friend well enough to notice, though, as Marina found out after Rachel had left the library.

"You're about to pass out," Annie observed. "Are you sure you wouldn't rather have a nap until dinner?"

Marina stifled a yawn. "I'd like a nap, to be honest, but I did promise to tell you what I was up to last night."

And so, pushing her hair out of her face and trying in vain to get it to stay behind her ears, Marina told Annie the whole story. She started with that Transfiguration lesson about self-transfiguration, when she remembered that her papa was, in fact, an animagus, though he rarely used the skill, and explained how that was the catalyst for the whole project, even though she should've been thinking about ways to help Annie with her family troubles instead. Then there was that Friday when Marina decided she'd try a bit of research and came up empty before she was interrupted by James Potter and his drama with Lily Evans. After that, the whole Alfred and Etta situation sort of put a damper on everyone's motivation to do anything but sit in a bemused and horrified stupor for a while, but Marina took up her thoughts on animagi again last night, when the couple's public displays of affection drove her to come up with a better option than staying in the common room. So that was why Marina snuck down to the library: she had wanted to do more research. Again, she wasn't finding anything she wanted, but then she had the idea to have a peek in the restricted section—

"You looked in the restricted section?" Annie interrupted, eyes wide.

"Yeah, why?"

Annie looked past Marina in the direction of where the restricted section was, even though it was out of sight this far back in the enormous library. "There's all sorts of books there, and a lot of them are apparently horrifying. Did you see anything really scary?" she asked.

"No, not really. Well, maybe I did, but I just didn't realize it. I was skimming for stuff about self-transfiguration, and a lot of the titles I saw had to do with things I hadn't heard of before. Anyway, I found this book—" Marina bent over to rifle through her bag and get out _The Humble Journey of a Seeker for the Art of Animagical Transfiguration of the Self_ , laying it on the table for Annie to see. "—and I think it contains absolutely everything I could ever want to know about animagi. I've started reading it, but I was exhausted at the time, so I think I'll have to go back and reread a good chunk of it."

With cautious hands, Annie picked up the small, old book and flipped it open, taking a quick look at the pages. "This is…dense," she said at last. "When do you expect you'll get through it all?"

"Not sure," Marina said, shrugging. "I don't think I'll be able to start the process before this school term is over, though, but I can't say for sure. Maybe I'll make fast work of it if it's really interesting."

Annie snapped the book closed and looked up. "'Start the process?' You mean you want to become an animagus?"

"Well, maybe. I'm not sure yet," Marina said quickly. As she said the words, Marina realized it was true. She wasn't sure, not really. Originally, yes, she had started on her research with the very vague goal of learning how to become an animagus in mind, but from what Marina had learned so far, it sounded like the process really was as tricky as it was made out to be, and she was pretty sure she had read last night that if it wasn't done exactly right it could be life-threatening. Before deciding if she should try it or not, she needed to do more research and find out exactly what was involved. "For now, can you keep this between us?"

"Oh, of course! It goes without saying that this is a secret project. Lots of Ravenclaws do have secret projects, you know, but not all of them are very good at keeping them secret, especially when they experiment in the common room in full view of everyone. That's just bad planning."

Marina laughed. "I'll keep that in mind. Thank you, Annie."

"You're welcome, but you don't need to thank me. We're friends, so it's my job to have your back, don't you think?" Annie's bright grin was back, and it was just as contagious as always. Marina found herself mirroring the grin back to her friend as if it was the most natural thing in the world, and maybe in that moment it was.

"You're right," she agreed. "I've got your back too, you know."

"I know."

For a while, the good mood of knowing that Annie knew and that Annie trusted her and that she trusted Annie carried Marina through her classes with impressive success. Fertilizing the plants wasn't so gross, dodging jinxes wasn't so annoying, sitting through Binns' droning lectures wasn't so boring, and even practicing her transfiguration spells wasn't so difficult. Nothing could really make Slughorn any more bearable, unfortunately, and Marina still endured the usual name mix-ups with the same sense of exasperation ('Stover-LeBlanc,' anyone?). As February passed and March crawled by, the weather improved, too, and Marina decided she'd go on the Hogsmeade trip that month after all, seeing as it was no longer freezing out. It was a lovely way to have a change of scenery from the castle and its grounds, and Marina took the opportunity to restock on her favorite sweets. Certainly the fact that Alfred and Etta sat in Madam Puddifoot's Tea Shop for most of the day was an added bonus; Marina didn't have to see the pair until dinner that evening.

It seemed, as March neared its end, that everything was going wonderfully, and third year would finish off in peace, so long as everyone made it through exams. Easter holiday was coming up, as well, something Marina was excitedly looking forward to: she'd get to meet her new brother for the first time after he was born in late February. Her parents had settled on naming him Charles Michel, and even though Marina wasn't sure how living with an infant would go, she was willing to give it a shot. Besides, she didn't have any other choice, did she?

On the last Thursday before Easter holiday, Marina's parents sent her a photograph of Charles Michel. He was pretty cute, Marina supposed, but she wasn't very qualified to have an opinion seeing as she hadn't encountered hardly any babies in her life. Lark, who had encountered quite a few babies, said that Charles Michel was certainly one of the cuter infants she'd ever seen. That same morning, Annie's parents also sent her a letter, but it didn't contain anything nearly as exciting as a photo of a baby sibling—Annie didn't have any baby siblings, anyway. No, Annie's letter bore some rather unpleasant news.


	14. Chapter 14

**AN: Helloooooooo guess who turned 18! Me! I'm an adult now, heck yeah! Anyway, I finally finished this chapter. Don't worry, it's not 8,000 words again, but it's still a pretty decent length at a little less than 6,000. Lots of stuff happens.**

 **I want to thank everyone for sticking with this advertised SiriusxOC story even tho there is no SiriusxOC yet. I'd also like to apologize, because I think we're looking at another 10-15 chapters before we have some SiriusxMarina action, and even that will be kinda minor. Just a heads up! I hope you guys are in for the long haul, because in total this work will probably be in the neighborhood of 40-50 chapters long. I mean, we're covering like a whole decade, here, and right now we're still in third year!**

Marina looked up from the photo of her smiling, squirming baby brother to see that, across the table, Annie had gone pale as she looked at the opened letter in her hands. There was a muggle envelope sitting in scraps next to Annie's plate of breakfast waffles, and the pages were on white sheets of paper, so Marina guessed it was from her parents—what other muggles knew to send her mail to Hogwarts? The look on Annie's face sent Marina's gut twisting. Whatever it was, the news was enough to take Annie's usual passively cheerful expression and turn it completely blank.

"Annie?" Marina asked, voice gentle, yet still loud enough to be heard over the bustle of the Great Hall. "What's wrong?"

No response. Marina wondered if Annie heard her at all; she just kept staring at the letter. Curious, Marina leaned forward, trying to catch a glimpse of the words through the back of the paper, but that's when Annie jolted back to life, refolding the letter and tucking it back into its envelope. When Marina looked back to her friend's face, the usual smile was back, though it didn't quite reach her eyes.

"It's alright, Mina," she said, picking up her fork again. "Just a letter from my mum, is all."

If nothing was wrong, then Annie wouldn't have reacted the way she had, Marina was sure. Something was the matter, but Marina knew Annie. After three years, she had learned that Annie, for all her blunt honesty, was quite a private person. Just like after Christmas holiday, Marina would have to find some time alone with Annie to discuss whatever news her mum had sent her. As it was Thursday, they had a free period before Charms, so maybe they could go to the library. Or, better yet, they could test out the Come and Go Room.

After Lark finished scarfing down her breakfast, as was her habit from years of waking up late, she announced that she was going to the library with Artemis. From the way the other girl looked up from her oatmeal with slightly quirked eyebrows, Marina got the impression that Artemis hadn't known she was going to the library with Lark until Lark said so, but she wasn't opposed to going either. After daintily stuffing another spoonful of her breakfast into her mouth, the spindly girl stood up to follow Lark out of the Great Hall. Once they'd gone, Marina fixed Annie with a serious look.

"There was some bad news in that letter, wasn't there?" she asked.

Annie's smile faltered, and she nodded. "I don't want to talk about it or I might start crying," she said.

Marina nodded and reached across the table and around a platter of pancakes to place her hand over Annie's in what she hoped was a comforting gesture. "How about we go up to the seventh floor?" she suggested. "I'd like to try out the Room again, now that I know what it is."

"And I'd like to see it," Annie agreed.

While Annie ate the rest of her waffles, Marina hopped up from the Ravenclaw table and wandered over to the Gryffindors to show Quincy and Gideon the picture of Charles Michel. Quincy smiled and said he'd have to come see him over their upcoming holiday, while Gideon took the moving picture for a closer look. The image was a loop of Charles Michel laying on his stomach, his raised head bobbing around a little, looking at the camera with wide eyes before his face broke out in a wide smile.

"He's what, one month old, right?" Gideon asked.

"Yeah, why?"

"Look at his eyes," the ginger boy said, holding the photo and pointing. "He's got dark brown eyes already. If he were getting green eyes like yours, they'd be blue right now."

Marina took the picture back to study her baby brother's eyes; Gideon was right, they were dark. "I thought babies were born with whatever eye color they were going to have anyway," she said. "If he were going to have green eyes—or, well, greenish eyes, because it's not like my eyes are really totally green—he'd have blue eyes right now?"

Gideon nodded. "Yeah. Molly was telling me about it over Christmas. You know, because Charlie was just born in December."

It was only a few minutes longer before Annie came over to collect Marina. "See you lot later," Marina said, getting up from the table and taking her photo back so she could follow her friend out of the Great Hall. The two girls began the exhausting climb up the stairs to get to the seventh floor.

"Why are we doing this again?" Marina asked as they were forced to double back as a staircase moved away from a third-floor landing.

With a fond shake of her head, Annie replied, "The Come and Go Room, of course. And I said I'd tell you what the letter was about."

After much stair-stepping, they were finally standing in the seventh floor corridor, backs to that ridiculous tapestry. Thinking very, very hard that she needed somewhere to talk with her friend, Marina paced back and forth in front of the stretch of blank stone wall. She looked back at Annie when the double doors began materializing, grinning, a triumphant feeling ballooning in her chest. Her success was furthered when Annie pulled open the doors to reveal a little sitting room done in soft blues and creams. There were no windows, nor was there a fireplace, but it was somehow well-lit and not at all drafty, as most of the castle was in this season.

Annie and Marina sat down on the velvet sofa and made themselves comfortable. "This is perfect," Marina said, clasping her hands together against her collarbones.

Annie nodded and pushed her glasses up her nose. "It really is fascinating. I'm quite glad you found this before Gideon or Quincy did, Mina, because they would have lorded a secret like this over us forever."

"It is rather more impressive than the kitchens, isn't it?" Marine smiled, but she reminded herself that she was here for Annie to discuss her family. "So, what did your mum write to you about?"

Annie lost her pleased grin and looked down at her lap. There was a period of silence that stretched out for what felt like ages, and Marina thought that if Annie was taking this long to tell her what was wrong, it must have been something really bad. At last, Annie said, "I can't go home for Easter holiday."

"Oh." That was all? Why was that so upsetting? Though Marina was confused, she kept it to herself. "Did something happen?" Worst case scenario, Annie's parents officially disowned her. Or maybe that crazy lunatic had really started following through on his threats against muggleborns, though Marina was pretty sure that would never go anywhere as long as the Ministry was around. What was his name? Vladimir or something?

When Annie answered, her voice was thicker-sounding, and if the blonde looked up, Marina was sure she'd see tears in her friend's blue eyes. "They've gone off on holiday without me," she explained. "It's a cruise. No warning at all. I—I suppose they don't care enough to have me with them anymore." With a quiet sob, Annie broke down in tears.

Marina thought back to the beginning of the semester, when Annie had been so distraught over how her family had ignored her all of Christmas holiday. As she wrapped both arms around her friend, she wondered how people could be so cruel to their child that they decided they didn't want to deal with her anymore. It made no sense to her. It wasn't like it was Annie's fault that she had magic, was it? How could someone hate their child for something that wasn't even her fault?

It didn't make any sense at all to Marina, but she left her confusion for another day. The thing to do right now was focus on helping Annie. "I think you have two options," she said softly.

Annie sniffled and sat up. "I—two options?"

Marina nodded. A chunk of her curly hair fell in her face, and she tucked it back behind her ear. "There's two things you can do," she repeated, gathering up the loose fabric of her robe sleeve to clean the smudges and tears off her friend's glasses. "You could stay here for the holiday, or you could go home with one of us—you know, me, or Lark, or Artemis, or something." She happened to glance over and notice that a small coffee table had appeared before the sofa. It displayed an array of pressed handkerchiefs.

After pointing this out, Marina watched Annie lean forward and pick up a simple white one to blow her nose in. After a moment, during which she appeared to be thinking with that faraway look of hers on her face, she said, "It would be rude to invite myself to someone else's house for the holiday. It would be better if I spent it here. That's one option."

"Why would it be inviting yourself to someone else's house?" Marina asked. She cocked her head to the side, wondering why Annie came to the conclusion she did. "It's asking if you can spend the holiday with a friend because your family will be on a cruise."

Long blonde pigtails swayed as Annie shook her head. "I can't ask Lark or Artemis. I'd have to explain so much; I haven't told them anything."

"Well…I could write to my mum and ask her if you can come home with me for the holiday. My parents would understand."

Annie looked up from where she was twisting the handkerchief in her lap, beaming even though her eyes were puffy and her nose was red. "Really? You'd do that?"

Marina nodded and smiled what she hoped was a reassuring and comforting smile. "Of course. I'll write out a letter to my mum today and send it off as soon as I can. That way we can have an answer tomorrow morning." When she turned to stand up, intending to go and start writing the letter at that moment, Marina found that the handkerchiefs on the table had been replaced with parchment, ink pots, and a selection of quills. "Oh," she said.

"This is quite an interesting room," Annie commented, also noticing the writing implements. "I wonder who built it into the castle. Do you think it was one of the founders of Hogwarts that did the spellwork to set it up?"

Scooting forward on the sofa and picking up a quill at random, a dark one with a green iridescence, Marina glanced around the room. "Could've been. If one of the founders did create it, then I suppose that means this room belongs to one of the houses."

"I'm not sure I like that concept. Maybe all four of them worked together on it."

"We'll probably never know," Marina said. She dipped into a pot of black ink and wrote out her letter:

 _Dear Mum,_

 _I have an urgent question to ask you. For complicated reasons that I can't explain_

"Wait," Marina said, "can I tell my mum what's going on with your family, just briefly?"

"Sure," Annie answered, shrugging. "I don't see why not."

Marina crossed out "can't explain" and continued:

 _Dear Mum,_

 _I have an urgent question to ask you. For complicated reasons that I_ _will explain briefly, I would like to invite Annie to our house for Easter holiday. In short, her muggle family is not very accepting of her magic and has decided to leave on a holiday cruise without her, leaving Annie without anyone to go home with for the holiday. It would be really sad to leave her at school alone, and I'd like her to enjoy time with a family because she hasn't had an enjoyable time with her family on any of our school holidays since first year. Can she come home with me pleeeeeeaaaaase?_

 _Please reply promptly, love,_

 _Mina_

It wasn't until after a particularly grueling Arithmancy class, during which Marina amused herself by watching Artemis make all sorts of disgusted, exasperated, and irked faces while Alfred Smith debated some stupid connotational technicality with Professor Traduce for a whole twenty-three minutes during the course of a class translation activity, that Marina was able to make the hike up to the Owlery. The school owl pecked at her fingers as she tied the parchment to its foot and flew off in a haughty ruffle of feathers without even a hoot in her direction. Marina was reminded, as she was every time she employed the services of a school owl, of how glad she was she had chosen a cat as her companion rather than an owl. She just didn't see how anyone could be friends with an owl. Never had she met a sweet-tempered owl, though Lark's owl was tolerant enough to take treats without nipping anyone's fingertips.

By the time Marina made it back to the Great Hall, lunch was almost half over with. That was okay though, Marina knew, because in the grand scheme of things, one slightly rushed lunch was worth Annie spending the holiday with a welcoming family. The only really unfortunate thing was that she was too late to have any sort of warning that Alfred and Etta were in the middle of intensely snogging; if she had been there earlier, she would have had time to look away and save her appetite. So, after all, it sort of worked out that she didn't have time to eat very much anyway.

—

Friday morning started out alright, even though it required sitting through double Potions and then Divination before lunch. Annie, who had been rather subdued for the remainder of the previous day after the unfortunate happenings of the morning, was back in her usual high spirits, and Marina, too, was looking forward to receiving her mum's answering letter at breakfast. Leaving Lark to sleep, Annie, Marina, and Artemis made the long trek downstairs to the Great Hall. With her own plate of fried eggs and sausage sitting in front of her just begging to be devoured like the wonderful savory breakfast it was, Marina watched Annie pour herself a bowl of the sugariest cereal within reach.

The owl post arrived only moments later, and the Stewart-Lautrec barn owl swooped low over the table to drop a scroll in front of Marina, though the letter actually landed just on the wrong side of a large tower of scones and rolled to Artemis. Pausing in the middle of spreading blueberry jam thickly over a slice of buttered toast, Artemis dusted the crumbs off the parchment and handed it across the table to Marina. Written in her mum's immaculate, angular cursive, the letter said:

 _Mina, my darling,_

 _I have sympathy for your friend's situation. As you can imagine, I know firsthand how it feels to be shunned by one's family. That said, neither I nor our house is in any condition to host a holiday guest. Charles Michel requires a large portion my attention, and there is none left to entertain one of your friends._

 _Truly, I do hope the situation is resolved, and I regret that opening our home cannot be part of it._

 _Much love,_

 _Mum_

Marina frowned. Sure, it made sense that with a new baby her mum wouldn't want to host, but that just wasn't good enough for her. This was Annie; couldn't her family make it work for her? Maybe she should've written the letter to her papa instead. He would have understood and let Annie stay for the holiday.

"Bad news?" Artemis asked, calling Annie's attention to the arrived letter.

It was like Marina could physically feel Annie's cheer dissipating as she read the short letter over Marina's shoulder. Suddenly, her friend was no longer relaxed and happy and enjoying her breakfast, and instead she was tense and closed-off. Marina looked over, and, sure enough, Annie's face had fallen into a blank mask. She cast a worried look across the table to Artemis.

"I'm staying at school for Easter holiday," Annie stated, turning her attention back to her cereal with significantly less enthusiasm than earlier.

Artemis lifted one eyebrow at Marina. "Why were her only two options to stay at school or go home with you?" she asked Marina. It was less startling now, after three years, how stunningly accurate Artemis could be in her conclusion-drawing. Her dark eyes slid over to Annie, giving her a penetrating look. "What's wrong at home?"

Annie heaved a sigh and answered, "My family isn't a fan of magic. It's been quite—" Her voice cracked, and she swallowed, blinking into her cereal bowl. "—quite a problem."

Artemis was quiet, furrowing her eyebrows. "I understand, you know," she said, reaching up to tuck her dark hair behind her ear, though it was already smoothed back.

Before they had a chance to find out if Artemis would say anything else, Lark flopped onto the bench space next to the thin witch. "Well," she said, grabbing for one of the scones, unbuttoned shirtsleeve nearly missing a jug of pumpkin juice, "I had quite the dream this morning. I thought I'd come down early rather than try to catch an extra twenty minutes' sleep." She took a large bite. "Why the sad faces, girls?"

"Annie needs a place to go for Easter holiday," Artemis answered quickly, eyes flicking quickly from Annie to Lark.

"Oh," Lark said. "Is everything okay?"

Artemis said nothing and looked to Annie again, who only blinked long and hard behind her glasses to ward off tears. In her stead, Marina took a breath and said, "It's rather a touchy subject." She glanced over at her blonde friend and made the decision to wrap an arm around her back, pulling her over to rest against her shoulder. "In a nutshell, her parents don't like magic, and it's been causing problems in her family for a couple years now. She got a letter that her family have all left on a cruise for the whole holiday—"

"What's a cruise?" Lark asked.

"It's a vacation on a large ship," Marina answered. "Anyway, she's got nowhere to go besides staying here."

Lark tsked and reached across the table to touch Annie comfortingly on the shoulder. "What about one of our houses?" she suggested.

With a roll of her eyes, Marina replied, "My mum already said she can't come home with me."

"Temmie?"

"Purebloods."

Lark snapped her fingers. "Ah, right. That'd be a disaster, wouldn't it? Well…" She popped the last of her scone in her mouth and looked off into the distance. "Well, I can write my mum today and tell her I'm having a friend come for the holiday." Nodding to herself, she swallowed and then smiled at Annie. "Yes, I'm sure it'll be fine. My older siblings bring friends home out of the blue all the time."

Annie sniffed. "I don't want to be any trouble," she said.

As expressive as always, Lark's features shifted into a look of horror. "Oh, of course not!" she cried. "Annie, you're no trouble to anyone who cares, and of course we all care about you. My parents'll be glad to have you, trust me."

Before leaving for class, Marina popped down the Ravenclaw table to tell Levi they didn't have to meet that afternoon if he didn't want to, it being the day before the holiday and all. The second year boy nodded and wished her a happy Easter, and then the girls all headed off to Potions. And when that was over, they went to sit through Divination, where at least Gideon and Quincy were able to distract Marina from how nonsensical the day's lesson was. Then it was lunch, where the second year Gryffindor boys transfigured Dumbledore's podium into a giant chocolate rabbit and made tulips sprout from between the stones in the floor. Herbology and Defense practically flew by, and then Marina was finally free. She spent the afternoon in the Ravenclaw girls' dorm packing with her roommates. They all had a discussion about Annie, and both Lark and Artemis proclaimed their support for her, affirming that she didn't have to go through it all without plenty of help. Marina appreciated how much the other two girls cared for Annie and wanted to be there for her. She was also glad that Annie seemed open to letting them into her personal problems.

"If you're ever going through a tough time, please please please don't feel like you have to pretend in front of us," Lark said, precisely folding her sweaters to pack. "You're so sweet, but we don't expect you to be sweet and perfect all the time, you know."

Annie smiled. "Thank you," she said, removing Maia from where she was sitting on top of her shirts. "I'm sorry I've been keeping this from you and only telling Mina."

With a shake of her head, Artemis dumped a collection of stockings into her trunk. "It was a big deal for you," she said.

"Exactly," Lark agreed, nodding. "It's hard to share something when it's really important to you."

The next day, after an unusually short train ride, Marina watched, smiling, as Lark introduced Annie to her parents and brothers and sisters. Thank Merlin the Maxwells were easygoing and took no issue with a short-notice houseguest. As for Marina's family, her parents met her on the platform with Charles Michel. Her little brother was even more adorable in real life than he was in photographs. She was excited to spend time with him, no matter what Quincy said about babies.

Or at least, Marina had been excited to spend time with her baby brother. She stopped being excited when Charles Michel screamed all the first night she was home, keeping her and Maia awake. Then he spit up all over her the following day. And then Marina discovered the horrors of diapers. By the fourth day of Easter holiday, the fourteen-year-old found herself at Quincy's house.

"I hate babies," she announced as soon as Mrs. Jackson left the two friends alone.

Quincy made a face. "Oh come on," he said. "It can't be that bad. Remember how I said they were cute enough to make up for it?"

Marina snorted. "Clearly you've forgotten," she said. "I haven't slept properly in three bloody nights. Merlin's pants, I'm not going to survive the whole holiday."

"So he's not cute at all?"

"Merlin, Quincy, that's not the point! Don't the cons of a baby outweigh the pros?"

Quincy shrugged. "I mean, I'm sure it's worth it to raise a whole person. We were babies once, too."

Marina shuddered. "I can't imagine sneezing mashed peas into my mum's face. There's no way I was ever that small."

With a shake of his head, Quincy got up from the couch to wander into the kitchen. Marina followed him and leaned against the counter while he poked around in his pantry. "You know, I'll bet you were even more difficult to deal with as a baby."

"No way. Charles Michel is a complete nightmare." She scowled. "And even his name is ridiculous. Why are we calling him by both his first and middle names, anyway? It's just a mouthful."

Quincy surfaced from the pantry with a box of chocolate biscuits. "Your mum was, what, seventeen? Eighteen?"

"What do you mean?"

"When she had you. That was probably really hard for her. She was alone, too, yeah?"

"Well, sort of, but—"

"You shouldn't be so quick to judge your brother, is all I'm saying," Quincy said, and he chomped down on a biscuit.

Marina sighed and gave her best friend a fond smile. "Since when are you all fair?"

Quincy shrugged and grinned back. "I got yelled at a few years ago for insulting my friend's mum based on a stupid stereotype."

Despite Quincy's admittedly wise words, Marina still found that she wasn't very much a fan of living with a baby. Maybe the worst part was that she couldn't just talk to her mum for five minutes without Charles Michel interrupting. Not to mention she heard her mum talking about staying home from now on because of the new baby. There was no way a silly baby was worth giving up her job at the Ministry, was there? Her mum didn't want to stay home for her when she was a baby, so what was so special about Charles Mi—oh, bugger, it was even too long to say in her head! That kid needed a nickname. Or even just Charles would be fine, right?

Anyway, Marina sulked around her house practically all holiday long, avoiding her brother as much as possible. It didn't work out so well, though, because the seventh time she tried to get away with using her already-finished DADA essay as an excuse to go hide in her bedroom instead of help feed Charles or whatever her mum wanted, she was called into the kitchen for a serious discussion. She could tell by her papa's stern tone of voice.

Marina pushed her hair behind her ears as she sat down at the table, looking between her parents, though most of it fell around her face anyway. Her curls were quite long now compared to how she kept it as a child, though they were still too short to tie all of them up at once, and frizziness was becoming a real problem that she should probably talk to Lark about. Lark's hair was a long mass of pretty, bouncy curls that somehow always looked good. If anyone knew about how to fix frizzy, curly, tangly hair, it would be her. Marina knew her mum knew nothing about really curly hair, since her own hair was barely wavy, though it also always looked perfectly styled. Well, almost always. This holiday Marina had seen her mum's hair in more ponytails than she had ever seen it in. Today, for example, Bobbie had even used a headband to keep her blonde hair away from her face. It was probably because of Charles.

"Mina, dear, we want to talk to you," her mum said.

Her papa leaned forward, worry clear in his eyebrows and the line of his mouth. "Are you okay, mon cœur? Do you feel well?"

Bobbie sighed. "Theo, just hold on a moment. We're concerned, Mina, with how much time you've been spending in your room or out of the house. You've barely spent more than ten minutes with us or your brother outside of lunch or dinner." She tilted her head and scrutinized her daughter, something that had always made Marina want to fidget and run away as a kid. Even now, the look caused Marina to shift in her seat and cross her ankles the other way. "Is there anything we should know about going on with you?"

It would probably be rude to say she didn't like having a baby brother. However, Marina had always been quite terrible at lying. Conflicted, Marina shrugged, glancing between her parents. It was only a short-term delaying tactic, she knew, because one way or another, her mum would weasel the truth out of her; she always did. Even now, Bobbie's eyes were narrowing, and the scrutinizing look intensified. For what felt like ten minutes but was probably closer to one, Marina held nervous eye contact with her mother, waiting for the probing questions that would undoubtedly come next.

And then Charles started crying from his nursery.

Marina breathed out a sigh of relief as her mum got up to go pay attention to the baby, leaving her daughter behind. She couldn't resist rolling her eyes as she watched Bobbie leave the kitchen.

"Don't think I didn't see that," her papa said. Merlin's pants, she had forgotten she was still stuck with her other parent. "Please, chèrie, talk to me. What's wrong?" He smiled softly. "I promise you, I will not be angry."

Without her mum in the room, it was easier for Marina to take in a deep breath and talk. "It's horrid of me," she prefaced, "but I don't like having a baby brother. He's loud all night, and he smells, and he threw up on me, and he's taking over our whole lives. I don't even know why you had another kid in the first place." She looked down at the table rather than watch as her papa's face fell. "I suppose you think I'm a terrible daughter for saying so. It's just that I don't understand why everyone wants to go though so much trouble for him. And his name is bigger than he is. Why are we calling him Charles Michel? Why not just Charles?" With a groan, Marina dropped her head on the table.

She heard her papa sigh and lean his weight forward on the table. Then she felt him stroking her hair gently, being mindful of the tangles. "I know it's difficult," Theo said. "You were an only child for fourteen years, and now you have someone new in your family who needs a lot of attention. My parents started fostering children when I was a couple years younger than you are, and I understand that it's not fun to share your parents with someone suddenly. Babies especially are difficult. You're right, they aren't very fun. But Charles Michel is part of our family now, and we love him."

Marina turned her head on the table so that she could look over at her papa and his kind dark eyes. She was grateful that he was being patient with her and trying to help, but he wasn't understanding her completely. "But—"

"Do we know what the problem is yet?" Bobbie said, entering the kitchen again with Charles in her arms. She bounced him gently, sitting back down in her chair.

"Mina is having difficulty adjusting to having a new brother," Theo answered.

Sitting up, Marina sighed. "I found out I don't like babies," she stated.

"Well, darling, whether you like babies or not, Charles Michel is your brother, and you will love him."

"Maybe I don't love him," Marina blurted, immediately realizing that was not the best thing to have said, no matter how true it was, especially in this moment.

Her mum's expression turned sharp, her green eyes freezing over. "Marina Rose Stewart-Lautrec," she said. "In this family, we love each other. You may not like him, but you are obligated to love him. That's what it means to be in a family."

Marina crossed her arms. That didn't even make any sense. How can you force someone to love someone else? "You can't make me love him."

"I bloody well can; I'm your mother."

"Bobbie, Mina, this is not—"

"No, Theo, she needs to understand—"

Marina stood up and watched her parents argue about her for only a moment before feeling tears lump up in her throat. She turned on her heel and ran out of the kitchen.

"Marina, we're not finished discussing this!" her mum called. Charles started up crying again.

"I don't care—I'm going to Quincy's!"

She heard her papa persuading her mum to "let her go, just let her think" as she shoved her feet into her boots and stepped outside, slamming the front door shut behind her. Her blood seemed to simmer under her skin, and she felt hot even in the early April chill. Storming out fo the house was stupid, she knew, but so was the idea that she had to love her brother because her mum said so. You loved your family because you loved them, not just because they were your family, right? She loved her parents because they raised her and took care of her and were supposed to always be there for her and, well, because she just did. There was nothing to love about her brother besides the fact that he was her brother.

Actually, she thought, walking along the sidewalk, maybe people are your family because you love them. She loved Quincy more than she loved Charles. Why couldn't she just have Quincy as her brother instead? Well, he wasn't actually related to her, was he? Alright, so people have to be related to you to be family, and that's why they're family, but why does that mean she has to love them? And what about people you love who aren't your family but become your family? When you get married, you love someone so much you want them to be your real family. So you can choose your family, sort of, Marina concluded. That just didn't explain why she was "obligated" to love Charles Michel.

When Quincy opened the door, Marina stomped into his house and told him everything in one breath.

He hugged her when she was done. With her chin just barely fitting over his shoulder, Marina realized for the first time that he had grown significantly taller than her recently. "I'm sorry, Mina," he said, and then he let go of her. "Do you think you'll sort it out before we go back to school on Saturday?"

"Well I don't bloody know," she huffed. "My papa will probably try to fix everything as soon as I go back home, but I'm pretty sure my mum will be stubborn about it, and I'm pretty sure I'll never agree with her. I'm not insane, right? It does make no sense, right?"

Quincy shrugged. "I mean, it does make sense to love your family. You love your family unconditionally, right? That's what people always say."

Marina didn't know what to say anymore. She had a lot to think about. Rather than reply, she just shrugged. They spent the rest of the afternoon talking about Quidditch and holiday homework and anything that had nothing to do with baby brothers. When it was time for dinner, Quincy's mum asked if she wanted to stay, so she did, partially to avoid going home for as long as she could and partially because Mrs. Jackson was an excellent cook. She did go home after that, though, knowing her parents would start to worry if she stayed away too long after the sun went down.

Her mum didn't bring up their earlier discussion once for the remaining days of Easter holiday, and her papa seemed reluctant to address the issue before her mum did. Marina boarded the Hogwarts Express that Saturday after tense goodbyes, holding Maia to her chest to ward off the feeling of not-quite-guilt sinking like a stone in her gut.


	15. Chapter 15

**AN: Hi, it's been a long time. I'm sorry you all had to wait over a month for a mediocre update. Honestly, I'm kind of disappointed with this chapter: it's shorter than i would really like, and it was forced, at least on my end. It's been rough, guys. I finished up with work (i nannied four kids multiple days a week) and went to my college orientation, sorted out move-in stuff, figured out all the final details for my loans, dealt with some bank account drama, and generally worried about college looming in the very near distance. It's Thursday right now and I leave Monday, and I still have to buy a couple things for my room, one of which i'm only getting bcuz my roommate wants more appliances than I think we need, which i'm stressing out about a bit. but at least i can sell it later right lmao**

 **Anyway, i feel like this is a pretty mediocre chapter, but i tried my best. pls just go with it. I'm sorry I couldn't deliver something bigger, especially since I'm not sure how much time/energy I'll have for writing when classes start in a week and a half. But hey, the plot is moving and my character is developing, and that's the goal, isn't it?**

 **Thanks for reading and putting up with my slow updates. Drop me a review if you'd like to stroke my ego or if you have genuine feedback about how you think i'm handling the story so far. Enjoy!**

By the time Annie found her on the train, Marina had sunk deep into her own thoughts. Her mind was a swirl of regret and "if only"s and questions. Why had she been so honest? If she had just pretended that everything was fine and that she loved her brother then everything would still be okay. But then, how was that any better, really? If she hadn't said anything, then all her feelings could have just gotten worse—or they could just go away over time after she got more used to her brother. Was this something that would ruin her relationship with her parents? She didn't want to end up like Annie, knowing how painful her friend's situation was. Yet, Marina couldn't think of how to approach a resolution. She didn't feel any differently about Charles Michel, so what would the point be?

"Mina?"

Annie's soft voice startled Marina out of her head, and she turned from staring blankly out at the platform to look up at her friend in the compartment doorway. It was sort of interesting, Marina thought, that their roles were here reversed. She offered a smile as the blonde stepped in the compartment and charmed her trunk up to the overhead compartment. With a gentle look, Annie sat down and looped her arm through Marina's. She expected Annie to ask what happened, what was going on, if she was okay; that's what Marina would do and was what she had done in the past. But Annie didn't say anything. She just let Marina bask in her sunny presence, which, she found, was all she needed to start feeling a little better. Maia agreed, purring and stepping over to Annie's lap for scratches behind her ears.

"How'd your holiday with Lark go?" Marina asked once the lump in her throat dissolved.

"It was really great," Annie answered. "Her family is…well, it was quite a change for me, but I liked it."

Marina snorted. "If they're anything like Lark—"

"Oh, they are! But they were very welcoming, and they made sure I was included the whole time."

"Good." Marina took a deep breath. "I had a sort of a fight with my mum and dad about Charles Michel."

Annie hummed. "I'm sorry."

"Yeah. I just…I don't get why I'm supposed to love him right away. I only met him once and I don't know anything about him, so why do I have to love him just because he's my brother? I don't know. I talked about it with Quincy sort of." Marina sighed. "He wasn't very helpful."

Annie hugged Marina's arm in a gesture of comfort. "I think you can choose to love sometimes. People think a lot that you love people just because you do, or that you grow to love someone, but I think those people don't have the whole picture. My parents—my parents chose to stop loving me, and I chose to make friends at school that I love. Maybe you just have to choose to love your brother, and if you try your best to love him, then you'll start loving him. You weren't there when he was born or anything, so it'll take more work to love him."

Marina nodded. That made sense; hadn't she figured already that you can choose who you think of as family? This was like a deeper step of that same thought. And, if she really thought about it, hadn't she decided to humor Quincy when he always wanted to play with her, back when they were younger? Now he was one of her favorite people, but she did have to make the choice to let him become one of her favorite people.

"Okay," she said. "Thank you. That helps."

It was at this point that Quincy and Gideon found the girls in the compartment and made a loud entrance. Maia hopped off of Annie to rub against Gideon's legs as they babbled about…well, something. Marina had no idea what the context of their conversation could possibly be, and they were talking too quickly to catch any hints. Eventually they came to some sort of conclusion and the four friends spent the rest of the train ride swapping Easter holiday stories—or Annie and Gideon did, anyway.

Returning to the castle was like a breath of fresh air, like all of the smog of Marina's parents and baby brother were far behind her. Was this how Annie felt every time she came back to school after being with her family? Marina bit her lip, glancing at her blonde, bright-eyed friend. She promised herself that from now on, she wouldn't get so distracted that she forgot about Annie's troubles. When they were seated in the Great Hall for dinner, while they waited on the arrival of Lark and Artemis, Marina pulled Annie in for a quick hug. With it, she tried to communicate her support and loyalty and dedication to help however she could. She hoped Annie understood.

Only a few beats after the hug ended, Marina felt someone sit down on her other side, and she turned, expecting it to be one of her other roommates, or even Quincy. Instead, it was Evan. He smiled one of his perfect smiles at her.

"Can I sit here?" he asked.

"Yeah," Marina answered, smiling back, "of course."

She bumped arms with him seven times and brushed hands twice during dinner, and all the while Lark shot her significant looks, after she and Artemis turned up anyway. After dinner, in the Ravenclaw girls' dorm, Lark and Annie told Marina and Artemis all about their Easter together, regaling them with tales of the shenanigans the Maxwell siblings got up to. They even had Artemis laughing, and she wasn't someone who laughed very often.

Unpacking from the holiday, Marina found the little copy of _The Humble Journey_ in her trunk, her place halfway into the book marked with a scrap of parchment. She bit her lip; she had forgotten to ask her papa about his animagus transformation while she was home. Was it too early to write home? Maybe she should try to reconcile with her parents sooner rather than later, anyway…even if she still felt the same way. Later, Marina decided. She could think about all of this later. The important thing was that she had classes tomorrow, work to turn in, a friend to care for, and a personal project to continue researching.

The first week back from Easter was rather uneventful. Classes were a blur, especially now that her professors were starting to cram their lessons in to have time for reviewing before end-of-year exams. Professor Traduce gave them a list of new words in runes to start memorizing, there was an essay on the causes of the goblin war to write for Binns, and Flitwick wanted a practice log with their most recent new spell, just to name a few items Marina needed to do. Yet, by the end of that week, she found herself engrossed in a new section of _The Humble Journey_ and couldn't bring herself to dedicate undivided attention to any of her assignments. It got bad enough that Annie noticed her lack of focus and literally removed the leather-bound book from Marina's hands and replaced it with a quill and roll of parchment.

Needless to say, in the second week after Easter holiday, Marina devoted more time and focus to her assigned studies. She also wrote out a letter to her mum and papa, explaining that she was sorry for being insensitive and promised to give Charles Michel a fair chance over summer. At the end of the letter, Marina also threw in a quick question about animagi, purportedly for a Transfig essay—she didn't have to devote all of her time and focus to school! Anyway, the reply came quickly, bringing with it a metaphorical olive branch and some helpful supplementation to Marina's personal research.

Then, as the April weather finally lost the March bitterness and turned wet as ever, Marina decided to skip a Tuesday Divination class. It happened like this:

Tuesday mornings were fraught with the stress of two hours in Slughorn's classroom. That particular Tuesday, Marina was so wrapped up in her thoughts, trying to fit her father's information in with the experimental narrative of the book she was getting close to finishing, that just as her potion was about to finish brewing to near-perfection, she stirred it one too many times in the wrong direction, over-agitated the gently simmering ingredients, and exploded the whole thing right in her face. Thankfully, her cauldron made it through the ordeal, as the explosion was purely liquid and not fiery, but Marina found herself left with gunk-soaked hair and a tingling face, not to mention a completely ruined uniform. Slughorn himself only looked over when his star students of the current class were drawn to the commotion.

"Oh, my goodness, Miss Saint-Laurence!" the portly man cried. "What happened?"

Marina sighed. "Exploded my potion, sir."

"And so near the end of the class, too," Slughorn tutted. "Well, go on, clean yourself up. I expect you'll come after classes finish for the day to have another go, or I'll have to mark this down as a failed project."

"Yes sir. Thanks, professor," Marina said, getting up to pack up her potions textbook and take her cauldron to the cabinets in the back of the room. Annie mouthed "I'm sorry!" just before she walked out the door, and beyond her, she could see Evan watching her with concern.

She took the stairs at a run, dashing up to Ravenclaw Tower and hoping she wouldn't run into anyone in the hall. As much as she hated to admit that she could be embarrassed, that was supremely embarrassing, especially the second of eye contact with Evan. Now he probably thought she was terrible with potions. It was one of her best classes, too! There was nothing too difficult about Potions class, really, not to Marina, and yet she had to go and loose herself in her own head and screw up in such a dramatic way. It served her right, didn't it?

It took three shampoos to fully get her curls clean again, but she supposed it was better than getting them singed off. By the time she was dried and dressed, Marina knew Potions would have ended, and now she was eating into her travel time by sitting on her bed and staring at that traitorous restricted book waiting so innocently in her bag to be picked back up. But, well, it was only Divination next, wasn't it? And she hadn't finished her homework for it anyway. And she'd only have to sit through the retelling of her failure to Gideon and Quincy, which could really happen without her presence. And it wasn't like the old bag would even notice her missing—the Divination professor was half-blind, after all. So really, what was one missed class? One missed elective. An elective she didn't even enjoy. An elective she would probably drop for next year, anyway.

That's how Marina sat up in the dormitory until lunch, reading her book and taking notes, connecting the deep analysis of the transformation with her papa's experience. It was an incredibly relaxing hour, so much so that Marina did it again on Friday, during her other Divination class of the week. Of course Annie disapproved, but Quincy congratulated her on having the guts to skip out on that joke of a class, and the extra time Marina devoted to studying the transfiguration helped her out in McGonagall's class as well. She managed a fully successful practical exercise in Transfig by the end of April, earning her a cool smile from the stern woman.

The last weekend of April, exactly one week from the first May Quidditch match—which Marina only knew because Quincy and Gideon had been raving about it since they got back from Easter, practically—Annie and Lark convinced Marina that she should come out for the Hogsmeade trip. If it were up to her, she wouldn't go, wrapped up as she was with finishing the book and her notes on the animagus transfiguration. Still, Annie pushed her glasses up her nose and descended upon Marina's trunk and dresser drawers to find her an outfit that was appropriately cozy and cute for the outing. With input from Lark, Annie came up with a purple knit sweater that brought out the green in her eyes and brown pants that went well with the cool tones of her hair and skin. The sweater was large enough to pull over her hands and create "sweater paws," as Lark called them. With a little prodding, the boisterous girl also got Annie to let her hair out of the usual pigtails, and after some brushing it fell in a soft, pretty way around her shoulders and framed her face. Marina was sure her friend would floor poor Quincey; Annie looked so pretty with her hair loose.

It wasn't long after they arrived in the little town that the heavens opened up and dumped buckets and buckets all over Scotland. Annie grabbed Marina's hand to run with her after Gideon and Quincy, dashing into the Three Broomsticks. It looked like the rest of the student body had the exact same idea, considering how crowded the pub was quickly becoming. The four friends had just begun the hopefully-not-futile search for a table when Marina heard someone call her name—a someone she thought she would probably recognize anywhere, with how much she paid attention to his existence.

Yes, Evan White himself was half-standing from his seat at a booth way in the back corner of the restaurant, waving her over. Marina took a deep breath and smiled over in his direction, then gestured to her three friends, nonverbally asking if there's room for them, too. Evan nodded and amped up the urgency of his waving, beckoning her over, a call Marina was all too happy to respond to.

"Come on, Evan's got a booth," Marina said, shouting a bit to be heard over the crowd noise.

Annie grinned and Quincy laughed. "Oo, Evan White, eh?" Gideon teased as they all shouldered their way back to the designated booth.

Marina swatted at the tall ginger playfully. "Oh, shut it," she snapped without any real bite. Of course her Gryffindor friends knew—well, these Gryffindor friends. She thought of her other Gryffindor boys; thank Merlin she didn't tell those four about her crush or there'd be serious cause for concern, with the mischief they were able to get up to.

Unfortunately, it seemed Marina had been so distracted by Evan's beautiful face that she had made a sever miscalculation: he was friends with Alfred Smith. So, alright, maybe Marina got to squeeze right up close to Evan, but at what cost? Merlin's pants, were her friends kind and patient people.

Anyway, third year ended on a sweet note for Marina. Hufflepuff won the House Cup for a lovely change, and Marina managed decent final grades in all her classes—even another E in Transfiguration! She even scraped by with an A in Divination, which just proved even more that the class wasn't worth anyone's salt. Marina fully made up every single answer to every single essay question on that exam, and wholly botched the practical fortune readings. Over the summer she would write to Flitwick about dropping the class when it was time to confirm her classes for fourth year.

The best part, though, was that Marina was confident that she had gleaned everything she could ever want to know about animagi from _The Humble Journey of a Seeker for the Art of Animagical Transfiguration of the Self, transcribed, translated, and transposed by Brutus the Younger._ Merlin bless Brutus the Younger, whoever he was, and Merlin bless the original author of the journal, she thought as she slipped into the library to return it just a couple days before the last day of the term. If she could, she'd get started with a mandrake leaf in her mouth right away, but she was also pretty certain that her parents would notice, especially her mum, and that would simply be a mess. Marina would just have to wait until she returned to school in September.

—

Like usual, Marina piled in a compartment with Quincy, Gideon, Annie, and Maia. Everything started out well, but Annie had been nearly silent from the end of the feast onward. Marina kept an eye on her friend, but the blonde stared out the window for the first hour of the trip, then she didn't order anything from the trolley, and finally as they grew closer to London, she dissolved into full worry. Of course Marina had seen an upset Annie before, but this was a first for the boys.

"What's the matter?" Quincy asked, eyebrows pinched in concern as Annie dropped her head to Marina's shoulder.

Rubbing her back, Marina gave Quincy and Gideon a sad look. "It's—well, it's not my story to tell—"

"Go ahead," Annie said, voice muffled by Marina's shoulder. She made a quick motion to swipe at her face, and Marina could feel her shaking.

Marina sighed. "It's her family," she said. "Things have been tense what with her parents not being very accepting of magic. It's not pretty when she's home for holidays, and over Easter they left for a holiday on a cruise ship without her, so she went to Lark Maxwell's house," Marina explained.

Expression gentle, Gideon got up to come sit on Annie's other side, setting a comforting hand on her shoulder. "Just let us know what we can do," he said softly. "We're your friends, and we promise we'll help with whatever you need from us. Right, Quin?"

Quincy nodded furiously. "Yeah, of course."

Annie took a deep breath and turned from Marina to squeeze Gideon in a hug. "Thank you," she said, and got up to cross the compartment and give Quincy a hug just as hearty. "Really," she said, "I appreciate it. I think—I think it'll be fine, really, it's just hard."

Gideon's response, to assure Annie that they'd be there to do whatever she needed to help her through her struggles, immediately sparked the gears to life in her head. Of course she always wrote to Annie, especially since the muggleborn wasn't allowed to own an owl of her own, but wouldn't it be a good idea to have a plan of action in place, just in the event that Annie did need them to do something? In the past, Marina had left her offers of help at being a shoulder and an ear and giving words of encouragement, assuming Annie would tell her if she wanted Marina to really do anything, but here was Gideon offering to do anything right away. It was one thing to be too pushy and overstep boundaries, which was now always something Marina tried to be careful of, but offering active help didn't seem to overstep anything or be pushy. Maybe Marina could take it a step further.

"Actually," she said, sitting up in her seat, "Gideon brings up a good point. What if you do need us to do something, like really do something?" Marina frowned, trying to arrange her words in her head. "I'm always here to help, of course, but what if there's an emergency or, I don't know, you reach a breaking point or something?"

"You mean like a contingency plan?" Quincy clarified.

Gideon nodded. "Yeah, I mean you can always complain to us or whatever, but I did mean it when I said we'll do what we can to help, too, and if it means we have to break you out of your bloody house, then by Merlin we'll come break you out."

Well, it was nice to know Marina's idea was really just Gideon's idea all along. Still, it would be nice to have a set contingency plan. So she said so. Annie grinned and agreed, and they spent almost the rest of the train ride talking about Diagon Alley outings and prison-like break-outs. Gideon felt pretty sure that he could volunteer his sister Molly's house as a sanctuary, if needed, especially since Marina still wasn't confident in her parents' willingness to host Annie for any extended amount of time. They all agreed to keep up a frequent stream of letters to her house so she'd have plenty of chances to ask for the implementation of any of their plans, as well as actually getting to talk to her. Maia helped Marina write down everything by batting at the quill, and Quincy came up with codenames for everything in case, for whatever reason, their correspondence was intercepted.

Annie breathed much easier for the rest of the train ride, or at least for what little was left of the train ride. They managed to get in two rounds of Exploding Snap before the Express pulled into the station, and as Quincy and Gideon wrangled all their luggage as they insisted they do, Marina wrapped an arm around Annie's shoulders.

"Remember you can sound the alarm to us at any time," she reminded her friend, who nodded and smiled in reply.

Greeting her parents on the platform was the final step in reconciliation for Marina, and she let out a breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding when her mum welcomed her home with open arms (her papa was holding Charles Michel, but he probably would have also wrapped her in a hug if he could have). They took the car home, and Marina considered her brother in his muggle carseat as she tried to keep Maia's tail away from his grabby hands. He certainly had grown some, and from the way he was looking around and staring at her with wide-open eyes, he certainly seemed to be a more interesting person than he was at Easter. Marina silently promised to give him another honest chance; maybe she really would start to love him as the summer went on.

Things started out well enough, and they didn't get worse, that was for sure. Charles Michel was less obnoxious overnight, thankfully, and he seemed sturdier—he was bigger and heavier and no longer looked like he would break if Marina touched him. There still wasn't much he could really do besides hold his head up and reach unsteadily for the toys placed in front of him. Marina sat and paid attention as her mum explained things about infant development and showed her how to change a diaper, but it was all very…mundane.

"Maybe you're just too much of a Ravenclaw," Quincy suggested as they walked away from the ice cream truck with slow, careful steps towards their curb.

Marina frowned and stabbed at her butter pecan ice cream in its cup with her plastic spoon. "What's that got to do with anything?" she asked.

Quincy shrugged and licked at his raspberry-chip cone—a more mature flavor choice than bright blue cotton candy, certainly. "I just think you're thinking about it too hard, you know? It's family and love and whatever. You don't really have to think about it, right, because you just love someone."

"Annie said you can make the choice to love people or not," Marina countered as they sat down.

With a sigh, Quincy bumped Marina's arm with his elbow. "See, you're thinking about it. Maybe Annie's right, and it's a choice thing. That doesn't mean you need to weigh the pros and cons that go into that choice. It's like—like when you read a book? Or something?"

Marina shot her friend a look with a quirked eyebrow. That was a terrible example he had just come up with.

"No, really—it's like reading a book. You have this reading assignment, and you know you have to do the reading, but you still make the choice to pick up the book. And then you have to choose to pay attention to what you're reading, and you can even go so far as to choose to try and be interested in what you're reading. And, yeah, you had to read it anyway, but you're the one who decided to read it and try to enjoy it. And you don't really spend a lot of time deliberating whether you should or not because—"

Marina snorted. "Right, like you don't honestly calculate which sections of the reading you can get away with skipping," she quipped.

"Oh, work with me, Mina!" Quincy paused to catch a drip before it fell from the bottom of his cone. "All I'm saying is that maybe you're making it more complicated than it needs to be."

Chewing on a cold, soggy pecan, Marina sighed through her nose. He was probably right.

"If it helps, maybe try to just, I don't know, learn. You love learning new stuff," he continued. "If he's not interesting by himself, just try to learn about babies, I guess. Might come in handy later, you know? I've heard babysitting is a pretty good way to make money over summer."

So she would try to learn, fine. And that had already sort of been happening just about every time her mum was doing something with Charles Michel in Marina's presence. After talking with Quincy, though, Marina decided to make a real effort to pay attention and listen to her mum when she explained baby things. It was a bit interesting, learning about what her baby brother could actually see or digest. She even found herself charmed by his big, curious eyes as his head bobbed around during tummy time.

It made her mum happy, that was for sure. Once Bobbie stepped out of the family room to answer an owl, and she smiled softly and clasped her hands against her sternum when she returned to see Marina playing with Charles Michel. Still, Marina was pretty sure she wouldn't ever choose to spend her time with a baby on her own. Because she had chosen to make a real, genuine effort, she did stop avoiding Charles, but Marina couldn't imagine enjoying babysitting. She didn't even want to consider having her own children; she didn't like babies nearly enough to make one.

By the end of July, Marina thought she was a lot closer to loving her baby brother than she had been at the beginning of the summer, but she couldn't tell if she did love him or not. Maybe that wasn't important, knowing for sure. Over time, he had grown on her, and she figured he would continue to grow on her. So that was solved, Marina thought.

Just in time, too, because a day after coming to that conclusion, Quincy showed up at her back door, out of breath from running, a letter clenched in his fist. It was from Annie. She was done. She wanted out. Marina nodded and went upstairs to her bedroom to go over the various plans with Quincy, plotting their sweet friend's escape. There was an owl to send to Gideon, and an owl to send to Annie, and then Gideon would send an owl to Annie, and that's how they would get her out. Marina would forever be thankful for Gideon's extensive knowledge of the wizarding world, far beyond what she would ever know, she felt. If all went according to plan, Annie would take the Knight Bus to Molly's house—Gideon's older sister—and spend the remainder of the summer there with her and her family. Gideon had promised that Annie would love his nephew Billy when they were making the plans on the Express.

Annie sent a letter by Molly Weasley's owl (Molly had married a man named Arthur Weasley, who apparently worked in the Ministry doing something with bewitched Muggle items) to let Marina and Quincy know that she arrived safely and left a note for her parents as discussed to avoid any real panic in the wake of her escape. She noted that the toddler Billy and his baby brother, both as ginger as Gideon and Molly and Arthur, apparently, were delights, and Marina could hear the sunny smile behind her words.


	16. Chapter 16

**AN: Hi, hello, what's up kids, I'm SO SO SORRY for how long it's been. Literally almost a whole year. Basically what happened is I moved two states away to go to my first year of college, which was amazing! Don't get me wrong! I loved it! But it took up all of my thoughts and energy to deal with my classes. I wrote very little that wasn't for class, and I tried to write for this story over winter break but I was too drained to finish a whole chapter. I've been home from school for about a month now, and I'm finally settled back in and I found a summer job and so NOW, FINALLY, I picked this back up again. I'm really sorry it's so short! I'm just trying to send something out to amp up my own motivation, and this is as complete a chapter as I can finish up and post quickly. Sorry for taking so long! Enjoy this little tidbit!**

"Hey Quincy," Marina asked, staring up at the sky, "did Annie ever write to you about what happened?"

"No," he answered from somewhere vaguely off to her right. He flipped a page of his comic book. It was one about a Norse wizarding boy who tames a dragon, if she remembered correctly. "Did she not tell you?" he asked.

Marina sat up and shook out her hair, checking the back for bits of grass or leaves from lying down in Quincy's backyard. It was a lovely end-of-summer day, and Quincy's mum had insisted they spend time outside. "Nope. I thought about asking, but I figured it was sensitive enough to wait for her to tell me on her own."

Quincy hummed. "I guess she's not ready to talk about it yet, then." He turned another page. "Do you think this is how you properly tame a dragon? Like, in real life?"

"Probably not. It's a comic book. Aren't you curious about what happened?"

"With dragons in viking times? Of course, that's why I asked—"

"No, with Annie!" Marina rolled her eyes and gave her friend's shoulder a small shove. "You're ridiculous."

Turning the book face-down in the grass to save his page, Quincy sat up and shoved Marina back. "I'm not ridiculous, you're the one being ridiculous. I'm worried about Annie, of course, but I'm not gonna dwell on what exactly her family did to her. I don't need to know, do I? She can tell me if she wants to, but I'm satisfied with knowing she's at Molly's and away from her anti-magic muggle parents."

Marina crossed her arms. "Well, yes," she said, and paused to blow her hair from her eyes, "but you don't know all of it, do you? It's really quite serious, her whole family drama. I want to make sure she's okay."

"Are you sure you're not just being nosy?" Quincy asked, crossing his arms too and raising his eyebrows. "You get nosy sometimes, you know."

"I'm not nosy!" she protested.

"Are too, a bit." Quincy shrugged. "It's not your fault. You're just being curious, I guess."

With a "humf!" noise, Marina flopped back down in the grass. "I'm not nosy," she repeated, quieter this time. "I'll prove it—I can wait until she tells us."

"Sure, Mina," Quincy laughed. He picked up his comic book again and laid with his head on Marina's stomach, holding the paperback up at arm's length to continue reading. Marina watched the charmed illustration of a dragon breath red and gold fire across the page, and that was the end of the Annie topic until September.

The blonde in question would arrive at King's Cross with Gideon of course, so it was up to Marina to find an open compartment, which wasn't too difficult considering how early she and her mum liked to arrive. She sat with Maia held in her lap, absently petting along the length of her cat's spine as she watched out the window for her friends to arrive. It wasn't too long, though, before she stopped focusing on the crowd as her thoughts swept her away. Being back on the train reminded her quite sharply of all the things unrelated to her official academics: Evan, her animagus project, tutoring, Evan, the Gryffindor boys and their pranks, and Evan. Most importantly, her animagus project and how it might affect the rest of her school year.

First of all she needed to collect the ingredients, which would certainly be tricky. She also needed to keep a mandrake leaf in her mouth for a whole month, which would be the trickiest part of it all, she was sure. How was she supposed to eat with a leaf in her mouth? And there was something about a spell she had to say every sunrise or something—Marina couldn't remember exactly, but that might be challenging given her aversion to waking up early. Part of her felt like it was totally manageable, but another conflicting part of her felt that maybe she should have some professorial oversight after all.

It was something to worry about at another time. Out the window Marina could see Gideon's red head of hair (had he gotten even taller over summer?) tailed by Annie. She waved through the glass to catch their attention, and not ten minutes later she was hugging Annie tight in her arms.

"It's so good to see you!" Marina said. After one last squeeze, she held her friend out at arm's length. "How are you?"

"I'm great, actually," Annie answered with a blinding grin.

"And I suppose I'm chopped liver?" Gideon asked.

Marina turned to face his crooked, teasing smile. He somehow already had Maia in one arm, so he did his best to return Marina's hug with his one free arm. "It's good to see you, too," she assured him. He definitely got taller over summer.

Quincy joined them not too long after that, and they all settled in for the trip up to Scotland. Once again, Quidditch dominated the conversation for the first hour or so of the trip. Gideon was sure he'd make the team this year, absolutely sure. Apparently almost half the Gryffindor team graduated last year, so the new captain would need to fill a lot of positions. Annie contributed to the discussion this year, which surprised Marina.

"I thought you weren't very interested in Quidditch?" she asked.

"Well, Gideon and Fabian were at Molly's quite a bit, trying to teach Billy with Arthur. He has a child's broom; it's really adorable! So they taught me, too, while they were at it."

This all went on while Marina sat with Maia, listening a little sullenly. What even was the point of Quidditch? So her friends liked it, sure, but there were other things going on that were more important, right? Didn't anyone want to hear what happened to Annie? Well, Gideon probably knew, and Marina supposed Quincy didn't feel the need to know, but she still wanted to make sure her friend was okay! And what about their electives? Shouldn't they discuss what electives they would take together this year? After all, Marina dropped Divination, and that was one of the only classes they all four spent together.

The arrival of the trolley witch was a welcome break in Quidditch talk, and as soon as she left, before Quincy or Gideon could start it up again, Marina quickly asked, "What electives is everyone taking this year? The same or different?"

"I dropped Divination," Quincy said with a shrug. "Just down to Muggle Studies and Care, now."

"Me too," Marina said. "I dropped Divination. I'm taking Arithmancy and Runes this year. Divination was such a horrid class."

"It wasn't so bad," Gideon protested. "I thought it was sort of easy."

"That's because it's completely bullshit. You just make it all up anyway!" Quincy said.

Annie raised her eyebrows. "That's quite harsh," she said. "I'm still taking it. And Care."

"Me too, Div and Care," Gideon added.

Marina snorted. "Why's everyone taking Care?" she asked.

"It's easy, and Kettleburn's a legend," Quincy answered.

"And fun," Annie added.

"And it's outside," Gideon finished.

After that, Gideon, Annie, and Quincy all started talking about Professor Kettleburn, another topic Marina couldn't talk about. She stroked Maia in her lap, feeling quite left-out and wishing they could talk about something she could also talk about, like—like—well, she didn't know what, exactly. She supposed the only thing she really wanted to talk about was Annie and what happened with her family, but that just wasn't the sort of thing to bring up casually, was it?

The feast was good, as always, and it cheered Marina to be back in the castle again. The floating candles and charmed ceiling in the Great Hall did wonders to improve her mood, and when McGonagall filed in with the first years, Marina exchanged amused looks with her fellow fourth year dormmates.

"Were we really that small?" Lark asked.

"They look so young," Annie said with a smile.

Marina almost completely forgot about her questions by the time they were all back up in their room in Ravenclaw Tower. Only, once she was alone with her friends, she remembered again. After the four girls settled down and made their annual adjustments to The List, Marina decided it was as good a time as any to finally ask Annie what had gone wrong.

"Annie," she began gently, "can I ask why you left your family this summer?"

"Wait," Lark cut in, "you ran away? Where did you go?"

"Gideon Prewett's older sister Molly's home," Annie answered quickly before looking back to Marina. "Mina, I don't really want to talk about it."

Oh. "Why? Was it bad?"

"I don't want to talk about it." Annie sighed. "Not yet, anyway."

"Um, hang on, I knew you two were friends with Gideon the Gryffindor, but I didn't know you were close enough to spend the summer with his family!" Lark raised an eyebrow suggestively. "Am I missing something? How close exactly are you to Gideon Prewett?"

Annie laughed and threw a pillow at Lark. "Not as close as you're thinking," she answered. "We're all just friends."

"If you say so."

"It's Quincy Jackson you should be more concerned about," Artemis commented lightly.

Lark gasped. "You're right, Marina does spend a lot of time with Quincy! And didn't Quincy ask Annie to Hogsmeade last year? Lad's got game!"

"Like Annie said, we're all just friends," Marina said. It was difficult to be annoyed by Lark's accusations; her comical expressions turned the round of interrogations into a joke.

"Oh, of course, my bad. You've got your eyes on one Evan White, haven't you?" Lark asked her with a shimmy of her shoulders. She threw herself back on her bed dramatically. "Oh, Evan!" she cried. "You look so gorgeous when you sit in front of me in class!"

The girls all laughed. "That's enough," Marina giggled. "We should get to bed for class tomorrow morning."

And that's what they did. They did that for a whole week of classes actually, during which Marina and the other Ravenclaws withstood two blocks of Potions on Tuesday and Thursday afternoon. By the time Tuesday afternoon rolled around again, Marina had started thinking about her personal project again, as of course was bound to happen once she returned to school. They happened to be using lacewing flies that afternoon, which got Marina thinking about death's-head moths, whose chrysalises were used in the potion needed for the animagus transformation. Someway, somehow, she'd need to brew that potion. As potions class was finishing up and students were starting to clean their tools and put away their extra ingredients, Marina's mind wandered to the class supply stock. It wouldn't be so difficult to just—well—snag a couple things, would it?

When Marina took her jars of scarab beetles, ginger root, and armadillo bile to the back of the classroom to put them away in the classroom cabinet, she lingered a moment, idly fiddling with the placement of her items on the shelves. She found herself occupied with skimming over the other labels nearby, looking for what she might need. Perhaps she stood there just a bit longer than she should've, and perhaps "just a bit" was an understatement. At the sound of Professor Slughorn's voice, she turned, startled.

"Are we quite alright back there, Miss Seymour-Llewellyn?"

"Yes, professor!"


End file.
